DOHA: UN chief Antonio Guterres will gather international envoys at a secret location in Doha on Monday in an increasingly desperate bid to find ways to influence Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers.
The Afghan Taliban, which took back power in August 2021, will be absent from dialogue with representatives from nearly 25 countries and international organizations, according to envoys.
The UN Secretary-General Guterres is to give an update on a review of the world organization’s critical relief operation in Afghanistan, ordered in April after the administration there stopped Afghan women working with UN agencies, envoys said.
The UN has said it was facing an “appalling choice” over maintaining its huge operation in the nation of 38 million.
Torn apart over the Ukraine conflict and other global tensions, the United Nations Security Council (UNSEC) powers united on Thursday to condemn the bans on Afghan girls and women and urge all nations to seek an immediate reversal of the policies.
The Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the call and said the restrictions are an internal social matter of Afghanistan.
UN’s proposals
The UN has given few indications of what proposals could be presented at the meeting.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Friday that the objective of the meeting was to reinvigorate international engagement around common goals for a durable way forward in Afghanistan.
The world body also wanted unity or commonality of human and women’s rights messages, countering drug trafficking and terrorism.
Dujarric insisted that recognition was not an issue. Whether the Taliban authorities take up Afghanistan’s UN seat was for the UN General Assembly to decide.
But the organization and other groups have been holding intense discussions on how to engage with the Taliban government and possibly offer incentives for change.
US Afghanistan ambassador Thomas West has recently visited West Asia to meet different groups and governments.
