James Macleod, the IOC's director of Olympic Solidarity and National Olympic Committee (NOC) relations, said the Taliban showed a "positive sign" when Afghanistan sent a delegation of men and women to compete at the recent Islamic Solidarity Games in Konya.

A total of 47 athletes competed for Afghanistan across 11 sports in the Turkish city last month with more women than men in the team.

The representation at Konya 2021 follows the pledge made by Taliban officials to the IOC last November to allow Afghan athletes and teams to compete internationally.

The IOC has been closely monitoring the situation in Afghanistan since Taliban returned to power in August last year following the withdrawal of American troops.

In 1999, Afghanistan was banned from the Olympics due to its discrimination against women under Taliban rule as well as its prohibition of sports of any kind and did not compete at Sydney 2000 as a result.

The country was re-instated in 2002 following the western invasion which overthrew the Taliban.

Speaking at the Panam Sports General Assembly in Chilean capital Santiago, Macleod said the IOC was continuing to keep a close eye on the Taliban’s approach to sport.

"The situation that happened in Afghanistan was for us one that that we reacted to quite strongly because of the fact that in the past, the Taliban regime that was in place, forbid women and young girls to access sport," said Macleod.

"The consequence of that in the Olympic Movement was that they were not invited to participate in the Olympic Games.

"When the Taliban regime came back into place after Tokyo we did react very quickly.

"There were a number of athletes that wanted to leave the country.

"We facilitated that with the help of a number of NOCs, Government and International Federations.

"Right now our belief is that we need a dialogue with all Governments whether we agree with their policies or not because you need to make sure that [countries] are able to fulfil that duty of uniting the sport.

"As such, the discussions that we are having at the moment with the Taliban regime is to ensure that access to sport can happen for everyone, not only women and girl but we are putting a particular emphasis on that.

"We are actually quite pleased with what is going on at the moment.

"You may have noticed at the recent Islamic Solidarity Games that they sent a delegation of men and women to represent Afghanistan.

"That is a positive sign.

"It’s not one that we believe that it is the only sign that we need to look at and we have put in place a full monitoring of this access within the country and a report will be made to the IOC Executive Board at the end of this year to determine our next steps.

"My point is that we are doing this specifically in Afghanistan now, but we are looking across [the other] 205 National Olympic Committees.

"If any of your countries have put in policies that we believe are contrary to the values of the Olympic Movement or Olympic Charter then the IOC will intervene immediately with quite strong measures."