KABUL: A UN envoy has met Afghanistan’s new interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who was for years was one of the world’s most wanted militants and is now part of an interim Afghan government.
Taking to Twitter on Thursday, Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesman, announced that the meeting between Deborah Lyons, head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, and Sirajuddin Haqqani focused on humanitarian assistance.
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and deliver vital aid to the Afghan people. He emphasized to remain engaged with the International Community. The Head of UNAMA said what we heard from you negate the propaganda launched against you in the last 20 years and send a positive message.— Suhail Shaheen. محمد سهیل شاهین (@suhailshaheen1) September 16, 2021
“Sirajuddin Haqqani stressed that UN personnel can conduct their work without any hurdle and deliver vital aid to the Afghan people,” the Taliban spokesman added.
The UN mission in Afghanistan said that in the Wednesday meeting Lyons had stressed the “absolute necessity for all UN and humanitarian personnel in Afghanistan to be able to work without intimidation or obstruction to deliver vital aid and conduct work for Afghan people”.
Afghanistan was already facing chronic poverty and drought but the situation has deteriorated since the Taliban took over last month with the disruption of aid, the departure of tens of thousands of people including aid workers.
Earlier this week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told an international aid conference that Afghans were facing “perhaps their most perilous hour”.
The Taliban repeatedly targeted the United Nations during the two-decades-long US-led military mission in Afghanistan that ended last month with the rout of the Western-backed government by the Taliban.
In one of the bloodiest incidents, Taliban militants killed five UN foreign staff in an attack on a guest-house in Kabul in 2009. More recently, gunmen attacked a UN compound in the city of Herat in July with rocket-propelled grenades killing a guard, while protesters in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif in 2011 killed seven UN staff.
US officials and members of the old US-backed Afghan government for years said the Haqqani network maintained ties with Al Qaeda. The Taliban have promised not to let Afghanistan be used for militant attacks on other countries.
