UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in an interview with the Associated Press says the international community wants to see an inclusive government in Afghanistan and to achieve that the United Nations must engage with the Taliban.
According to Guterres, the international community want to see an inclusive government emerge in Afghanistan that would respect human rights, especially women and girls’ rights, and that it would not be a base for terrorists.
However, he said it is difficult to forecast what might come next and in order to keep things in the right direction, the UN needs to remain engaged. “We don’t know how things we will develop, but we know that if we don’t engage, they will probably go in the wrong direction,” he said.
Guterres also called for cooperation and coordination in sending humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan to address the urgent needs for essential items.
“We need to mobilize the international community to provide humanitarian aid. The Afghan people are suffering so much. It is vital to bring to the Afghans food, medicine, and other basic forms of support to avoid the catastrophic situation in the country,” he added.
In the meantime, Admiral Rob Bauer, chair of the NATO Military Committee, told reporters after the NATO military leaders’ meeting in Athens on Saturday that NATO member states are concerned about threats from Afghanistan.
He said, however, that there is no counterterrorism plan on hand for targeting insurgents in Afghanistan.
“There is no NATO counterterrorism operation foreseen, not with Afghanistan. We’re not working on that particularly. There is, of course, concerns in the different nations and there is a concern within NATO about the possibility of Afghanistan becoming a safe haven for terrorists again. The time will learn whether or not NATO is then willing, the alliance is willing, to conduct an operation, a CT operation. But for now, that is not on the agenda,” he said.
The remarks of the NATO official come as the Taliban has repeatedly said it will not allow any group to threaten any country from Afghanistan.
