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UN, Afghan Taliban Work on Interactions09/26 10:47
(AP) -- It's been little more than a month since Kalashnikov-toting Taliban
fighters in their signature heavy beards, hightop sneakers and shalwar kameezes
descended on the Afghan capital and cemented their takeover. Now they're vying
for a seat in the club of nations and seeking what no country has given them as
they attempt to govern for a second time: international recognition of their
rule.
The Taliban wrote to the United Nations requesting to address the U.N.
General Assembly meeting of leaders that is underway in New York. They argue
they have all the requirements needed for recognition of a government. The U.N.
has effectively responded to the Taliban's request by signaling: Not so fast.
Afghanistan, which joined the U.N. in 1946 as an early member state, is
scheduled to speak last at the General Assembly leaders' session on Monday.
With no meeting yet held by the U.N. committee that decides challenges to
credentials, it appears almost certain that Afghanistan's current ambassador
will give the address this year -- or that no one will at all.
The U.N. can withhold or bestow formal acknowledgement on the Taliban, and
use this as crucial leverage to exact assurances on human rights, girls' access
to education and political concessions. This is where the power -- and
relevance, even -- of the 76-year-old world body still holds.
Afghanistan is a good, and perhaps extreme, representative case study of
precisely why the United Nations was founded in the aftermath of World War II,
said Rohinton Medhora, president of the Center for International Governance
Innovation in Canada.
"If you're the U.N. and you want to represent the family of nations, then
you want absolutely everyone of the family there -- even you know, the distant
cousin that not everyone's proud of," he said. "So the U.N. needs Afghanistan
and countries to demonstrate the value of many of its operations."
In Afghanistan, the United Nations can deploy the weight of its vast aid and
development programs to show just how crucial its often underfunded agencies
are in providing stability and security. The country is facing multiple
humanitarian crises and near-total poverty due to fallout from the political
situation.
There are already growing calls for aid to be contingent on ensuring girls'
access to education. Despite promises to be inclusive and open, the Taliban
have yet to allow older girls back to school, have curtailed local media
freedoms and returned to brutal practices like publicly hanging dead bodies in
city squares.
"Taliban does not represent the will of the Afghan people," Afghanistan's
currently accredited ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Nasir Andisha, told The
Associated Press.
If the United Nations recognizes the Taliban's claim to power, Andisha said,
then it sends a corrosive message to others -- be it in Yemen or in Myanmar --
that they can take up guns, create violence, join with U.S.-designated
terrorist groups.
"I think for the world, for the United Nations, it's time to use this as a
leverage," Andisha said.
The Taliban's appointed U.N. representative, Suhail Shaheen, a former
negotiator and political spokesman, told The Associated Press that his
government should be admitted into the club of nations and that "all borders,
territory and major cities of Afghanistan are in our control."
"We have support of our people and because of their support, we were able to
continue a successful struggle for independence of our country which culminated
in our independence," he said. "We have all the requirements needed for
recognition of a government. So we hope the UN as an neutral World Body
recognize the current government of Afghanistan."
More than a dozen ministers in the all-Taliban Cabinet are on a U.N.
blacklist, including the group's foreign minister, whom Andisha and other
Afghan diplomats abroad are refusing to speak to.
Andisha was serving in Geneva under the U.S.-backed government of Ashraf
Ghani when the president fled Afghanistan Aug. 15 to seek refuge in the United
Arab Emirates as the Taliban encircled the capital. Ghani's government swiftly
fell thereafter.
Andisha is still holding meetings with representatives from countries around
the world, imploring them to push for the resuscitation of intra-Afghan peace
talks. He wants the United Nations to make clear that joining its ranks is not
only about "holding a country under the barrels of your guns and having enough
population taken hostage."
Meanwhile, Qatar has urged countries not to boycott the Taliban, and
Pakistan called on nations to avoid isolating the Taliban, and to incentivize
them to hold to their promises of renouncing terrorism and being inclusive.
During the Taliban's repressive time in power in the late 1990's, only
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates recognized their
legitimacy. During that era, the U.N. refused to recognize their government and
gave Afghanistan's seat to the previous, warlord-dominated government.
The group was then ousted from power in 2001 by a U.S.-led coalition after
the 9/11 attacks for harboring al-Qaida.
The United States, which withdrew all its forces from the country last month
in a chaotic airlift that ended America's "forever war," says it is critical
that the international community remains united in ensuring the Taliban meets a
range of commitments before granting legitimacy or support beyond humanitarian
aid.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this is the message he delivered to
the U.N. Security Council and others on the sidelines of the General Assembly
this week.
The U.S. has "significant leverage when it comes to the Taliban," State
Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters Friday. "But we have all the more
leverage when we work in coordination and in harmony with our allies and
partners around the globe," he added.
Medhora, of the Center for International Governance Innovation, said the
U.N. has levers it can use through its various agencies, such as UNICEF, which
focuses on children, UNHCR, which assists refugees, and the World Food Program,
all "where the actual work of the U.N. gets done." This is another area where
the United States has major sway as the the largest donor to the United
Nations, contributing nearly one-fifth of funding for the body's collective
budget in 2019, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
In multiple U.N. speeches this past week, a number of world leaders
mentioned Afghanistan, including U.S. President Joe Biden and Afghanistan's
neighbors, such as Pakistan, Iran and Uzbekistan.
Enayat Najafizada, who runs an independent think tank in Kabul that monitors
security issues in Afghanistan's provinces, said the U.N. should also
facilitate negotiations between Afghan groups and bring the various countries
with a history of meddling in the nation on board for the sake of regional
security.
"Without forming an inclusive government, the country will move to a civil
war," said Najafizada, founder of The Institute of War and Peace Studies.
Although what comes next for Afghanistan is far from certain, it is clear
the Taliban do not want to be seen as global pariahs, said Kamal Alam,
nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
"They want a seat at the U.N. They want to go to Davos. They like the
private jet lifestyle," he said, referring to the group's political elite who
reside in exile in Qatar.
"But that's only the political leaders. The foot soldiers on the ground,
there's no such thing as 'the new Taliban'," he said. "There is no new Taliban.
Everything they're doing is a tactic to get recognition as well as not be
isolated."
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