U.N. summit in Qatar on Afghanistan ends, one other deliberate

DOHA, Qatar — 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 mentioned they might maintain one other assembly sooner or later.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres attended the summit, which the world physique described as nations and organizations attempting to succeed in 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 current days criticized the chance.

“To achieve our objectives, we cannot disengage,” Guterres mentioned. “And many called for engagement to be more effective and based on lessons we have learned from the past.”

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

Asked by a journalist if there can be any circumstance underneath which he’d be wiling to straight meet with the Taliban, Guterres mentioned: “When it is the right moment to do so, I will obviously not refuse that possibility – but today is not the right moment to do so.”

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, instructed The Associated Press that the brand new Afghan authorities dismissed the talks.

“If they are not ready to hear us and know our position regarding the issues, how can they reach a convincing and palatable solution?” Shaheen mentioned. “One-sided decisions couldn’t deliver. Afghanistan is an independent country. It has its own voice; we want them to listen to our voice.”

Shaheen on Sunday met Andrew McCoubrey, director of Afghanistan and Pakistan on the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office, and Yue Xiaoyong, China’s particular envoy for Afghanistan, in Doha.

“As you know, the U.N. envoy has talks with government officials in Kabul, but when it comes to these sorts of conferences … we are not invited,” Shaheen added. “We think this is not the solution for Afghan issues and its outcome can’t be effective.”

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

In the time because the Taliban seizing energy, Afghanistan has develop into probably the most repressive on the planet for girls and women, disadvantaged of nearly all their fundamental rights, in keeping with the U.N.

Girls are banned from training past sixth grade and girls are barred from working, finding out, touring with out a male companion, and even going to parks or bathtub homes. Women 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 assist. Afghanistan stays wracked by poverty and starvation, squeezed like different nations by Russia’s conflict on Ukraine.

Meanwhile, issues stay over Afghanistan once more changing 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 Sept. 11 assault on New York and Washington. Since the takeover, the U.S. has carried out drone strikes concentrating on suspected militants.

Those issues have difficult how nations, notably the West, cope with Afghanistan at the moment.

Activists had apprehensive the Qatar summit might 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 more than half of the population from society,” an open letter from the activists learn. “Having denied women and girls almost all of their fundamental human rights, the Taliban has become the only regime in the world upholding a system of gender apartheid.”

The nations 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 United Kingdom, the United States and Uzbekistan.

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

• Associated Press writers Riazat Butt in Islamabad, Edith M. Lederer on the United Nations and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this story.