Russian UN envoy hints Moscow could drop sanctions on Taliban

4 months ago 13

Russian envoy to the UN Vasily Nebenzya suggested Monday (1 July) that Moscow was considering dropping sanctions against the Taliban as the Afghan authorities met with representatives of the international community in Doha.

International envoys to Afghanistan, including Russia’s, were gathered for a two-day summit on the country’s future in Qatar at which the Taliban have pressed for sanctions to be dropped.

“(The Taliban) are the de facto authorities. (They) are not going to stop, and we’ve been saying consistently that you have to recognize this fact and deal with them as such because, whether you like it or not, this movement is running the country now. You cannot simply ignore that,” he said.

“On how far we are from removing them from the sanctions list on which they are now with Russia, I cannot tell you the definite answer, but I heard some talks about it,” Nebenzya said without giving further details.

The Taliban government in Kabul has not been officially recognized by any other government since it took power in 2021.

Russia like many countries, including the United States as well as the European Union, maintains sanctions on the Taliban, designating it a terrorist group.

Russia has not recognized the Taliban as the legal government of Afghanistan, but it kept open its embassy in Kabul throughout the group’s takeover up to the present day.

The group has imposed a strict interpretation of Islam, with women subjected to laws characterized by the UN as “gender apartheid”.

The Doha talks are the third such summit to be held in Qatar in a little over a year, but the first to include the Taliban authorities who seized power in Afghanistan in 2021.

“Afghans are asking why they are being ganged up on, on the basis of unilateral and multilateral sanctions,” head of the Taliban delegation, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

He questioned whether ongoing sanctions were “fair practice” after “wars and insecurity for almost half a century as a result of foreign invasions and interference.”

Nebenzya was speaking Monday as Russia takes the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council for the month of July, unveiling an agenda for the body that omitted Ukraine.

The Security Council is badly divided with Russia at loggerheads with Washington and its allies Britain and France over the war in Ukraine as well as the Gaza conflict.