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A United Nations waiver allowing 13 Afghan Taliban officials to travel abroad expired on Friday, as the Security Council failed to reach an agreement on whether to extend the travel exemptions.
China and Russia have called for an extension, while the United States and Western nations have sought a reduced list of Taliban officials allowed to travel to protest against the Taliban’s rollback of women’s rights and failure to form an inclusive government as it promised.
Under a 2011 UN Security Council resolution, 135 Taliban officials are subject to sanctions that include asset freezes and travel bans. But 13 of them were granted exemptions from the travel ban to allow them to meet officials from other countries abroad for peace talks.
In June, the 15-member UN Security Council’s Afghanistan Sanctions Committee removed two Taliban education ministers from the exemption list over the regime’s curtailment of women’s rights.
At the same time, they renewed the exemption for the others until August 19, plus a further month if no member objected.
If no member of the council objects to the travel ban by Monday afternoon, it will come into force for three months.
The US on Thursday proposed reimposing the travel ban on seven of the 13 Taliban officials and keeping the exemption for six others, but limiting their travel only to Qatar, where US-Taliban talks have taken place, council diplomats said.
(Al Jazeera)
