On June 23, speaking at the UN Security Council in New York, Nathalie Broadhurst, the deputy permanent representative of France to the UN, after presenting all the good things the West did for Afghanistan, announced that “Committee 1988” (the UNSC Committee in charge of applying the sanctions adopted in 2011 by Resolution 1988), has decided to toughen the sanctions against the Taliban, still considered a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) as dangerous as ISIS. Not a word was said about the millions of women and children facing death by starvation and disease as a direct result of these sanctions.
Broadhurst: “We recently granted exemptions from the travel ban to 13 Taliban in the 1988 Committee to allow them to participate in international discussions, in order to bring Afghanistan out of the isolation imposed by the Taliban themselves. The international community has been clear. five conditions must be respected by the Taliban in order to emerge from this isolation. Let me remind you of them: the constitution of a representative government, the safe departure of Afghans who wish to do so, respect for the fundamental rights of all, especially women, free access for humanitarian aid everywhere, and the complete and concrete severance of ties with terrorist groups. To date, none of these conditions have been fully met. Recent decisions taken in violation of the rights of women and girls are unacceptable, including the March 23 decision to exclude girls from secondary school. Trust has been broken as these decisions show that the Taliban’s promises are empty. For this reason, the 1988 committee revoked the exemptions from the travel ban for the two education ministers. With respect to their security commitments, we were also disappointed. As the Secretary General’s report shows, links to terrorist groups have not been severed. The announcements on drug trafficking might be encouraging, but at this stage they are only promises.”
In May, despite repeated denials by the Taliban, the Committee 1988s Monitoring Team (MT) accused the Taliban of maintaining a significant presence in Afghanistan of the India-focused Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the largest and most active terrorist organizations, operating mainly from Pakistan, and the Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Kashmir and Jammu-based terror group. This is the 13th report by the MT and the first since the Taliban took control of Kabul after the sudden U.S. withdrawal in August and the government flight. The conclusions drawn are based on consultations with member-states. The head of the Taliban political office in Doha, Suhail Shaheen, told the Times of India that the government in Kabul is not allowing anyone to use Afghanistan soil against “any neighboring and regional country.”