India-Bhutan nexus kept Taliban representative out of UN: sources

ISLAMABAD: India in collusion with Bhutan and Ghani’s nominated representative to the UN foiled the attempt made by Taliban administration to represent Afghanistan in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) summit that concluded early this week.

Well-placed diplomatic sources told The News here Tuesday that Indian mission at the UN headquarters in New York secretly engaged with Ghulam Isaczai, appointed by ousted Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who continued to sit at Afghanistan’s seat at the United Nations even after the change of regime.

In a bid to change Afghan representative in the UN, Afghan Foreign Minister Mullah Amir Muttaqi wrote a letter to the UN Secretary General and nominated Sohail Shaheen as permanent representative. Muttaqi had also asked to allow his representative to participate in the 76th session of the UN General Assembly.

The matter was sent to the UN credential committee that decided about the representation of the member states and relevant subjects. The credentials committee is currently chaired by Sweden and includes the US, China, Russia, Bahamas, Namibia, Sierra Leone, Bhutan and Chile. The sources pointed out that India is a non-permanent member of the Security Council while Bhutan, under influence of India, is among the nine members of the credentials committee.

The diplomatic sources revealed that Ghulam Isaczai, despite representing Ashraf Ghani in the UN, always toed the line of Indian delegation throughout his appointment at the UN headquarters. He along India too opposed the move of changing the representative for Kabul. Incidentally, the Afghan delegation withdrew its participation from the UNGA debate at the last moment as confirmed by the spokesperson for the Secretary General. He said, “Envoy appointed by the ousted Ashraf Ghani-government withdrew participation from addressing the world on the final day of the high-level meeting.”