Taliban to attend UN climate conference in Azerbaijan

KABUL: Afghan Taliban officials will attend a major United Nations climate conference that starts next week, the Afghan Foreign Ministry said on Sunday, the first time they have attended since the former insurgents took power in 2021.

The COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku will be among the highest-profile multilateral events attended by Taliban administration officials since they took control in Kabul after 20 years of fighting Nato-backed forces.

The UN has not allowed the Taliban to take up Afghanistan’s seat at the General Assembly, and Afghanistan’s government is not formally recognised by UN member states, largely due to the Taliban’s restrictions on women’s education and freedom of movement.

Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said officials from the National Environmental Protection Agency had arrived in Azerbaijan to attend the COP conference. The Taliban took over the agency when they returned to power as U.S.-led forces withdrew.

Taliban officials have taken part in UN-organised meetings on Afghanistan in Doha, and Taliban ministers have attended forums in China and Central Asia in the past two years. But the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Bureau of the COP has deferred consideration of Afghanistan’s participation since 2021, in effect freezing the country out of the talks.