The UN Security Council (UNSC) will vote today on whether to extend the 13 Taliban officials’ travel exemptions or to rescind their waivers in light of the disagreements among UNSC member states.
The travel exemptions for the Afghan Taliban officials were set to expire on Friday, August 19, and the UNSC is reportedly stalemated over whether to extend them.
The United States, the United Kingdom, and France—the three permanent members of the UNSC—want to impose travel restrictions on Taliban officials.
Russia and China, the other two permanent members of this council, however, are in favor of waiving up to 13 Taliban officials from their travel bans.
The spokesman for the Taliban’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, tweeted on Saturday that under the Doha Agreement all the sanctions against the Taliban should be rescinded.
The Taliban official wrote that the specific clause of the Doha Agreement “should be implemented in full.”
The Taliban official warned that had the UNSC refused to extend the travel ban waiver, the decision would provoke them to maintain a “stern stance” that is not “in the interest of anyone.”
As UNSC members are “deadlocked”, rights groups, on the other hand, argue that the measures should be reinstated owing to the Taliban’s mistreatment of Afghan women since taking control last year.
Even though 13 other Taliban officials had their travel ban waivers extended earlier for at least two months, which expired on August 19, two Taliban education officials had their travel rights revoked because the Taliban restricted women’s and girls’ access to education, last time.
