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UNITED NATIONS (PA) – Who should represent Afghanistan at the United Nations this month? It is a complex issue with many political implications.
The Taliban, the country’s new rulers for a few weeks, are challenging the credentials of their country’s former ambassador to the UN and want to speak at the high-level meeting of the General Assembly of world leaders this week, said the international body.
The question now facing UN officials comes just over a month after the Taliban, expelled from Afghanistan by the United States and its allies after 9/11, returned to power as the US forces were preparing to withdraw from the country in late August. The Taliban stunned the world by seizing the territory with surprising speed and with little resistance from the US-trained Afghan army. The Western-backed government collapsed on August 15.
UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres received a communication on September 15 from currently accredited Afghan Ambassador Ghulam Isaczai with the list of the Afghan delegation for the 76th annual session of the Assembly.
Five days later, Guterres received another communication with the letterhead “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs”, signed by “Ameer Khan Muttaqi” as “Minister of Foreign Affairs”, requesting to participate at the gathering of UN world leaders.
Muttaqi said in the letter that former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was “ousted” on August 15 and countries around the world “no longer recognize him as president,” and therefore Isaczai no longer represents Afghanistan, Dujarric said. .
The Taliban have said they are appointing a new permanent UN representative, Mohammad Suhail Shaheen, the UN spokesman said. He was the spokesperson for the Taliban during the peace negotiations in Qatar.
Senior US State Department officials said they were aware of the Taliban’s request – the US is a member of the UN credentials committee – but would not predict how this group might rule. . However, one of the officials said the committee would “take some time to deliberate,” suggesting that the Taliban envoy would not be able to address the General Assembly during this session at least during the senior leadership week.
In the event of a dispute over seats at the United Nations, the General Assembly’s powers committee, made up of nine members, must meet to make a decision. Both letters were sent to the committee after consultation with the office of General Assembly President Abdulla Shahid. The members of the committee are the United States, Russia, China, Bahamas, Bhutan, Chile, Namibia, Sierra Leone and Sweden.
Afghanistan is due to deliver the final speech on the last day of the high-level meeting on September 27. It was not clear who would speak if the committee met and the Taliban won the siege of Afghanistan.
When the Taliban last ruled from 1996 to 2001, the UN refused to recognize their government and instead ceded the siege of Afghanistan to the former warlord-dominated government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was eventually killed by a suicide bomber in 2011. It was Rabbani’s government. who brought Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of 9/11, to Afghanistan from Sudan in 1996.
The Taliban have said they want international recognition and financial assistance to rebuild the war-torn country. But the makeup of the new Taliban government poses a dilemma for the United Nations. Several of the acting ministers are on the UN’s so-called blacklist of international terrorists and terrorist funders.
Members of the credentials committee could also use recognition of the Taliban as leverage to push for a more inclusive government that guarantees human rights, especially for girls who were not allowed to go to school. school during their previous reign and women who were not able to work.
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Kathy Gannon in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Matthew Lee in New York contributed to this report.
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