UN Summit in Qatar on Afghanistan Ends, Another Planned – The Diplomat

A closed-door summit on Afghanistan ended Tuesday in Qatar with none formal acknowledgment of the Taliban-controlled authorities there, although the United Nations’ chief stated they might maintain one other assembly sooner or later.

U.N. Secretary-Common Antonio Guterres attended the summit, which the world physique described as nations and organizations making an attempt to achieve unified stances on human rights, governance, counterterrorism, and anti-drug efforts. No recognition had been anticipated to return out of the assembly, although activists in latest days criticized the likelihood.

“To attain our aims, we can not disengage,” Guterres stated. “And lots of referred to as for engagement to be more practical and primarily based on classes we’ve discovered from the previous.”

He didn’t elaborate, although the Taliban beforehand managed Afghanistan from 1994 to 2001.

Requested by a journalist if there could be any circumstance below which he’d be wiling to straight meet with the Taliban, Guterres stated: “When it’s the proper second to take action, I’ll clearly not refuse that chance — however at this time isn’t the fitting second to take action.”

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Absent from the assembly have been the Taliban themselves, who took over Afghanistan in August 2021.

Suhail Shaheen, the pinnacle of the Taliban’s political workplace in Doha, advised The Related Press that the brand new Afghan authorities dismissed the talks.

“If they don’t seem to be prepared to listen to us and know our place concerning the problems, how can they attain a convincing and palatable resolution?” Shaheen stated. “One-sided choices couldn’t ship. Afghanistan is an unbiased nation. It has its personal voice; we would like them to take heed to our voice.”

Shaheen on Sunday met Andrew McCoubrey, director of Afghanistan and Pakistan at the UK’s International Workplace, and Yue Xiaoyong, China’s particular envoy for Afghanistan, in Doha.

“As , the U.N. envoy has talks with authorities officers in Kabul, however in the case of these kinds of conferences … we aren’t invited,” Shaheen added. “We expect this isn’t the answer for Afghan points and its consequence can’t be efficient.”

Afghanistan’s appearing international minister, Maulvi Amir Khan Muttaqi, will journey to Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, later this week to fulfill Chinese language and Pakistani officers.

Within the time for the reason that Taliban seized energy, Afghanistan has turn out to be probably the most repressive place on the planet for girls and ladies, who’re disadvantaged of just about all their primary rights, in line with the United Nations.

Ladies are banned from training past sixth grade and girls are barred from working, finding out, touring with no male companion, and even going to parks or bathtub homes. Girls should additionally cowl themselves from head to toe and are barred from working at nationwide and worldwide non-governmental organizations, disrupting the supply of humanitarian support. Afghanistan stays wracked by poverty and starvation, squeezed like different nations by Russia’s warfare on Ukraine.

In the meantime, issues stay over Afghanistan once more turning into a haven for Islamic extremists desirous to strike out overseas. The U.S.-led 2001 invasion got here on the again of al-Qaida’s 9/11 assault on New York and Washington. Because the takeover, the US has carried out drone strikes concentrating on suspected militants.

These issues have difficult how nations, notably the West, cope with Afghanistan at this time.

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Activists had anxious the Qatar summit may see the worldwide neighborhood attain a recognition cope with the Taliban whilst girls stay largely barred from society.

The Taliban are “a terrorist group whose deeply repressive regime has systematically sought to erase greater than half of the inhabitants from society,” an open letter from the activists learn. “Having denied girls and ladies virtually all of their elementary human rights, the Taliban has turn out to be the one regime on the planet upholding a system of gender apartheid.”

The international locations that took half within the Doha summit included China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Norway, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates, the UK, the US, and Uzbekistan.

Qatar, an energy-rich nation on the Arabian Peninsula that has lengthy hosted a political workplace for the Taliban, hosted the talks.