A UN Security Council meeting on Afghanistan was held in New York on Wednesday, 25 September 1405, with the Taliban administration\u2019s continued restrictions on women and girls, as well as insecurity along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, identified as among the main concerns.<\/p>\n
Britain\u2019s representative at the meeting said a one-year ban on Afghan women staff entering UN offices had disrupted aid efforts. The US representative also described the five-year deprivation of women and girls from education as regrettable.<\/p>\n
France called the ban on Afghan women working for the United Nations unacceptable and said the international community had listened to the Taliban administration\u2019s demands, but that the administration must respond to the world\u2019s demands with practical action. The United States, Britain and France also stressed that any engagement with the Taliban administration must be accompanied by accountability.<\/p>\n
At the same time, the UN secretary-general\u2019s report described the Afghanistan-Pakistan border situation as unstable. According to the report, airstrikes, drone surveillance flights and reciprocal shelling affected parts of Ghazni, Kunar, Khost, Paktika, Paktia, Kandahar and Nangarhar, and at least 57 civilians were killed and 342 others wounded between 1 April and 30 June.<\/p>\n
Russia and Britain called at the meeting for de-escalation and a return to dialogue between the Taliban administration and Pakistan. Meanwhile, Turkey and Qatar again stepped in to mediate, and the head of Turkey\u2019s intelligence agency and the deputy of Qatar\u2019s National Security Council travelled to Kabul on Tuesday and met with Taliban administration officials.<\/p>\n
In another part of the meeting, China, Russia and Iran stressed the continuation of dialogue, the expansion of economic cooperation and avoiding the isolation of Afghanistan. Parvathaneni Harish, India\u2019s permanent representative to the United Nations, also strongly condemned trade and transit restrictions on Afghanistan, saying they were contrary to the principles relating to landlocked developing countries, World Trade Organization rules and the UN Charter.<\/p>\n
Harish also said India would continue facilitating Afghan exports, including through the India-Afghanistan air corridor, to support Afghanistan\u2019s economic development. The UN Security Council is one of the main decision-making bodies on global peace and security, and its meetings on Afghanistan usually focus on human rights, security and humanitarian assistance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UN Security Council raises alarm over Taliban restrictions on women and worsening Afghanistan-Pakistan border insecurity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,4,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-politics","category-secondary-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}