Afghanistan

Russia said Friday that Afghanistan’s Taliban had made progress against terrorism and drug trafficking but needed to resolve women’s rights issues and create an inclusive government to win recognition for their rule.

Uzbekistan is hosting a conference Thursday of foreign ministers of regional countries, including Russia and China, to review the situation and cooperation with Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

The Taliban on Wednesday said their decision to forbid local women from working for the United Nations in Afghanistan is an internal matter that all parties should respect.

The UN has launched an operational review in Afghanistan, and told national staff to remain at home, following the decision by the Taliban de facto authorities to ban Afghan women from working with the Organization. 

“Our colleagues on the ground at the UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) received word of an order by the de facto authorities that bans female national staff members of the UN from working,” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, told reporters at UN Headquarters during the regular daily briefing.

The United Nations has renewed its call for Afghanistan's Taliban to immediately reopen schools to teenage girls, saying the de facto authorities have no justification for denying the right to education on any grounds, including religion or tradition.

The Security Council today adopted two resolutions concerning Afghanistan, both unanimously, one of which extended the mandate of the United Nations special political mission for one year, while the other requested an independent assessment of — and recommendations for — efforts to address that country’s challenges.

Afghanistan under the Taliban remains the “most repressive country in the world [for] women’s rights”, the senior UN official in Kabul told the Security Council on Wednesday, while nevertheless voicing a nuanced position on the importance of continuing to engage with the group.

A report submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council Monday accuses Afghanistan’s de facto Taliban rulers of pursuing a policy “tantamount to gender apartheid."

A new government watchdog report details how poor planning in the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, after years of inadequate oversight, contributed to the rapid collapse of the Western-backed government as the Taliban closed in on Kabul.