ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Taliban confirmed Tuesday that their delegation will attend an upcoming U.N.-led meeting on Afghanistan in Qatar, after organizers said last week that women would be excluded from the meeting.
The meeting on June 30 and July 1 is the third UN-sponsored meeting on the Afghan crisis in the Qatari capital Doha.
The Taliban were not invited to the first and the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said they were setting unacceptable conditions for attending the second meeting in February, which demanded that members of Afghan civil society be excluded from the talks and treated as the country’s legitimate rulers.
On Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry in Kabul said the Taliban government’s main spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, will lead the Taliban delegation during the two-day meeting, which starts on Sunday.
The ministry said the strategy for the meeting in Doha was discussed at a meeting chaired by Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, during which various topics were discussed, including international restrictions imposed on the Afghan financial and banking system, the challenges in private sector growth and government action against drugs. human trafficking.
The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021, as US and NATO troops were in the final weeks of their withdrawal from the country after two decades of war.
No country has yet officially recognized the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan. The United Nations has said recognition is virtually impossible ban on women’s education and employment stay in place.
Last week the United Nations’ Afghanistan’s top official, Roza Otunbayeva, defended the failure to include Afghan women in the upcoming meeting in Doha, stressing that demands for women’s rights will be secured.
