ANOTHER CRUCIAL AFGHAN MEETING TO BE HELD BY THE UN, INCLUDING TALIBAN REPRESENTATIVES

Thu 06 July 2023:

During a meeting at ARG, Scott Smith, the head of the UN political office in Afghanistan, declared that plans are on for a new Doha summit, to which representatives of the current regime will be included this time, Khaama Press reported.

He emphasized that the meeting will be scheduled prior to the year’s end.

Smith assured the de factor authorities that the international community would continue to provide humanitarian aid, according to a statement released here by Arg.

A closed-door summit on Afghanistan talks was held in Qatar earlier in May without formally recognizing the Taliban-run government.

Some experts believe that the Doha meeting will result in a recognition agreement between the international community and the Taliban.

Representatives from about 25 countries and organizations, including ambassadors from the US, China, and Russia and significant European aid donors and important neighbouring countries like Pakistan were invited to the two days of private negotiations that UN Secretary-general Antonio Guterres began on May 1-2 in the capital of Qatar.

Meanwhile, the Taliban representative condemned that they were not invited to the meeting. “Any meeting about Afghanistan without the participation of the Afghan government is ineffective and counterproductive,” Abdul Qahar Balkhi, the Taliban foreign ministry spokesperson, told Al Jazeera.

In the last Afghanistan talks in Doha, the UN chief said that the Taliban rulers would not be invited to the meeting to discuss the dire humanitarian situation in the country and its international isolation. Meanwhile, the Taliban recognition was not on the agenda.

Still, the UN officials in Kabul have not commented, and the agenda of the upcoming meeting has yet to be disclosed.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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