Ayaz Gul
VOA News
June 16, 2024

ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan’s Taliban government said Sunday it will send a delegation to the two-day United Nations conference on Afghanistan, set to commence in Doha, Qatar, June 30.

This will mark the first time the de facto Afghan rulers will attend a gathering of international envoys on Afghanistan since U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres started the process over a year ago, aimed at developing a coherent and unified world approach to engagement with the Taliban.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief Taliban spokesman, told an Afghan television channel Sunday that their government had held internal discussions on the agenda for the third Doha conference and agreed to participate.

“We will announce the composition of the delegation later, God willing. We believe this will serve the interest of Afghanistan,” Mujahid said in his interview, aired by TOLO News.

He defended the decision and did not mention any conditions from their government, saying they consider any meetings facilitating humanitarian aid and investment in Afghanistan to be crucial.

The Taliban Foreign Ministry spokesman later said in a formal statement that the decision to participate in the upcoming Doha meeting had stemmed from their own two months of discussions with the U.N. on the agenda and the list of the participants.

“If there are any changes to the agenda and participation, it would naturally affect our decision which we will share with all sides at that time,” Abdul Qahar Balkhi cautioned.

The U.N. has stated that the third Doha meeting aims to increase international engagement with the Taliban and Afghanistan at large “in a more coherent, coordinated and structured manner.”

Guterres did not invite the Taliban to the first Doha meeting in May 2023, and the Afghan rulers refused an invitation to the second this past February.

The fundamentalist Taliban had asked the U.N. during the lead-up to the second Doha meeting to only recognize their delegates as the country’s official representatives. This meant that Afghan civil society leaders and women’s rights activists would not be allowed to be present. The Taliban authorities also sought a meeting between their delegation and the U.N. at “a very senior level.”

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres rejected the conditions. The international community does not recognize the Taliban government, as many of its top leaders remain under terrorism-related U.N. sanctions.

Mujahid did not specify any conditions for their involvement in the forthcoming Doha conference.

Curbs on women

Sunday’s Taliban announcement comes amid persistent calls from Afghan and global rights monitors to ensure women’s representation at the table in the Doha meeting, with women’s and girls’ rights at the center of discussions.

The hardline Taliban stormed back to power in Afghanistan almost three years ago, imposing sweeping curbs on women’s right to education and public life at large in line with their harsh interpretation of Islam.

Afghan girls ages 12 and older are banned from attending secondary school, while women are prohibited from public and private workplaces, including the U.N., except for Afghan health care and a few other sectors.

Women are not allowed to travel long distances by road or air unless accompanied by a close male relative and are banned from visiting public places such as parks, gyms, and bathhouses.

The elusive Taliban supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has rejected international criticism of his governance, including restrictions on women, as an interference in Afghanistan’s internal affairs.

The Taliban’s ban on educating girls reached 1,000 days last week, with UNICEF, denouncing it as a “sad and sobering milestone and demanding its immediate removal.

“For 1.5 million girls, this systematic exclusion is not only a blatant violation of their right to education but also results in dwindling opportunities and deteriorating mental health,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said.

The Taliban’s return to power in August 2021 has led to the worsening of economic and humanitarian conditions in the impoverished nation of more than 40 million people, reeling from years of war and the devastation of natural disasters.

The World Food Program estimates that more than a quarter of the population needs food assistance for survival. “More than 12 million people in Afghanistan do not know where their next meal will come from,” the U.N. agency stated.