THE UN Security Council renewed its sanctions regime against the Afghan Taliban but adapted it to help those on the blacklist who travel outside of Afghanistan for peace talks.
There are 132 individuals and four entities on the current sanctions list, and diplomats voiced hope that the travel exemptions would help promote peace and reconciliation with foreign troops due to leave the country in 2014.
The resolution “invites the government of Afghanistan, in close coordination with the High Peace Council, to submit for the committee’s consideration the names of listed individuals for whom it confirms travel to such specified location or locations is necessary to participate in meetings in support of peace and reconciliation”.
The council’s sanctions committee requires that travellers inform them of their passport number, destination and the duration of their travel — which cannot exceed nine months.
Britain’s UN Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said the US-sponsored resolution makes the travel ban exemption “more effective and more flexible so it can serve the purposes of the peace and reconciliation process that is going to be so important over the next two years in Afghanistan”.
“It does that while sustaining proper oversight for the committee and it also sets the framework for closer co-operation between the Afghan government and sanctions committee,” he added in a statement.
Under the auspices of a French think-tank, two senior Taliban officials will sit down for informal talks this week on the war-ravaged country’s future with the government and other opposition forces, including the Northern Alliance.
The meetings are taking place at an undisclosed location on the outskirts of Paris.
The Taliban ran Afghanistan as an Islamic emirate from 1996 to 2001. It will be the first time they have taken part in a round-table of this kind since being overthrown by US-backed opponents following the deadly September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
ref: http://www.news.com.au
Tags: blacklisted, helps, Taliban, UN
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