UN chief Guterres says he will not refuse the potential for meeting Afghanistan’s Taliban

By Press Trust of India: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres acknowledged on Tuesday he’ll “obviously not refuse” the potential for meeting the Afghan de-facto authority, the Taliban, “when it is the right moment to do so”.

Guterres arrived in Doha Monday to host a two-day meeting of Special Envoys on Afghanistan to attain components of commonality on key factors, resembling human rights, significantly girls’s and girls’ rights, inclusive governance, countering terrorism and drug trafficking.

The meeting is supposed to realize a normal understanding all through the worldwide group on tips about the best way to interact with the Taliban on these factors.

“When it is the right moment to do so, I will obviously not refuse that possibility. Today, is not the right moment to do so,” Guterres acknowledged in Doha at a press conference.

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He was responding to a question on whether or not or not there are any circumstances beneath which he would meet the Taliban.

India is among the many many countries and organisations who participated inside the Doha meeting.

“The meeting was about developing a common international approach, not about recognition of the de facto Taliban authorities,” Guterres acknowledged.

The completely different contributors inside the meeting are from China, France, Germany, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Norway, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, T¼rkiye, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan, European Union and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

Guterres added that it is robust to overestimate the gravity of the state of affairs in Afghanistan, describing it as a very powerful humanitarian catastrophe on the earth proper now.

He well-known that 97 per cent of Afghans dwell in poverty, two-thirds of the inhabitants – 28 million – will need humanitarian assist this yr to survive and 6 million Afghan children, girls, and males are one step away from famine-like circumstances.

He moreover voiced issues that “funding is evaporating” and said the UN Humanitarian Response Plan, seeking USD 4.6 billion, has received a mere USD 294 million – 6.4 per cent of the total funding required.

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Guterres added that the current ban on Afghan women working for the United Nations and national and international NGOs is “unacceptable and puts lives in jeopardy.”

He asserted that the UN will never be silent in the face of unprecedented, systemic attacks on women and girls’ rights.

“We will on a regular basis talk out when tens of thousands and thousands of girls and girls are being silenced and erased from sight. This is a grave violation of elementary human rights,” he acknowledged.

He added that it violates Afghanistan’s obligations beneath worldwide regulation, particularly, human rights regulation, and infringes on the principle of non-discrimination, which is a core tenet underpinning the United Nations Charter.

“And it deliberately undermines the development of a country that desperately needs the contributions of all, in order to achieve sustainable peace and contribute to regional stability.”

The Taliban returned to power in Kabul in August 2021 and have restricted Afghan girls and girls from collaborating in most areas of public and day by day life.

Afghan girls have been barred from working with the UN in a country the place nearly 29 million people depend on humanitarian assist.

Last week, the UN Security Council unanimously condemned a selection by the Taliban to ban Afghan girls from working for the United Nations in Afghanistan, calling on the de facto authorities to “swiftly reverse” insurance coverage insurance policies and practices that restrict girls and girls from exercising their human rights.

The determination moreover known as for the whole, equal, vital and guarded participation of girls and girls in Afghanistan.

It moreover calls upon the Taliban to “swiftly reverse the insurance coverage insurance policies and practices that restrict the enjoyment by girls and girls of their human rights and elementary freedoms along with related to their entry to education, employment, freedom of movement, and ladies’s full, equal and vital participation in public life.

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