KABUL (Pajhwok): Some western countries emphasized that enduring peace and stability in Afghanistan required a credible and inclusive national dialogue leading to a constitutional order with a representative political system.
Special envoys and representatives for Afghanistan of the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States met last week and released a joint communiqué on Thursday in which they said the presence of Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was recently killed in a US strike, showed the Taliban was not keeping its commitment.
Other officials from Japan, Qatar, Switzerland and UNAMA also participated in the meeting as observers, which included technical sessions with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
The envoys expressed grave concerns with the continued undermining of human rights and fundamental freedoms of Afghans.
They welcomed the recent report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan to the UN Human Rights Council and denounced violations of international humanitarian law and abuses of rights protected under international human rights treaties and conventions to which Afghanistan is a State Party, including abuses of the rights of members of ethnic and religious minority groups or other marginalized groups.
The meeting condemned, in particular, abuses of the rights of Afghan women and girls throughout the country, including restrictions on freedom of movement, as well as their exclusion from political, economic, educational and social spaces.
The meeting called for the immediate reversal of the Taliban’s ban on girls’ attendance in schools in grades 7 to 12, noting girls have not attended school at these levels for the last year throughout most of the country.
The envoys denounced increasing restrictions on freedom of opinion and expression, notably through media repression, including of female reporters, and condemned the detentions of both Afghan and foreign journalists.
They stressed the urgency in continuing to address the grave humanitarian crisis in the country, including through steps to prepare the Afghan population for the upcoming winter and highlighted the substantial humanitarian assistance provided for Afghanistan since August 2021 from their respective governments and organizations.
They affirmed the need for all relevant actors to adhere to applicable international law and to ensure the independence of humanitarian organizations; emphasized the importance of all humanitarian staff – men and women – having unimpeded access to any areas of the country necessary to performing their jobs effectively.
The meeting called for adherence to humanitarian principles and for the removal of any restrictions and obstacles to the provision of humanitarian assistance; and emphasized the importance of equitable and direct access to humanitarian aid, as well as to aid intended to address basic human needs, with appropriate consideration for vulnerable populations, including women and women-led households, children and ethnic and religious communities.
The envoys condemned recent ISIS-K attacks against civilians, the diplomatic community and areas where civilians gather, including mosques; acknowledged active operations by the Taliban against ISIS-K.
They called on the Taliban to protect at-risk ethnic and religious communities from attacks by members of ISIS-K and other terrorists, as well as to take all possible steps to ensure perpetrators of such attacks are held accountable.
They emphasized that enduring peace and stability in Afghanistan required a credible and inclusive national dialogue leading to a constitutional order with a representative political system.
They noted that the risk of armed conflict was likely to increase significantly without a broadly representative and accountable government chosen through a credible process in which all adult Afghan women and men can participate and called on the Taliban to fulfill their commitment made in the February 2020 Doha Agreement to participate in intra-Afghan dialogue and negotiations over a political roadmap that leads to a new Afghan Islamic government.
The participants underscored the importance of the Taliban fulfilling their commitments to counter drug production and trafficking.
They noted that the Taliban had committed to allow safe and orderly passage to and from Afghanistan of foreign nationals and Afghans – both women and men – who were properly documented.
They discussed the recent lapse of the exceptions to the UN travel ban on certain Taliban leaders and called on all countries to act responsibly in implementing their UN obligations.
The meeting emphasized that foreign assistance to Afghanistan was for the benefit of the Afghan people and not a sign of progress toward normalization of relations with the Taliban; and noted that engagement by members of the international community with the Taliban should not be interpreted as progress toward normalization.
It highlighted the need for the Taliban to focus on the country’s economic crisis and to create an enabling environment for greater investment through, among other things, adherence to fair and transparent rule of law.
The meeting stressed that humanitarian assistance and assistance for basic human needs are not sufficient to prevent further deterioration of the country’s economy and discussed other ways to help sustain Afghan livelihoods through economic stabilization and by increasing liquidity in the country.
The meeting emphasized the importance of reviving Afghanistan’s banking and financial sector and to facilitating licit cross-border money flows; raised the need to expand the capability, transparency and professionalism of the Afghan central bank as part of efforts to increase liquidity and to stabilize the economy.
They noted the recent establishment of the Afghan Fund in Switzerland that aims to preserve and protect Afghan central bank reserves and to make targeted disbursements from those reserves for the benefit of the people of Afghanistan.
The meeting highlighted the need for all members of the international community, particularly Afghanistan’s neighbors, other partners in the region and Muslim-majority countries, to cooperate in Afghanistan with the interest of the Afghan people in mind.
pr/ma
