Taliban delegation participates in high-stakes UN meeting in Qatar

A Taliban delegation attended a United Nations-led meeting in Qatar on Sunday, despite organizers excluding women from the gathering.

The two-day meeting marks the third U.N.-sponsored gathering on the Afghan crisis in Doha, the Qatari capital.

Zabihullah Mujahid, chief spokesman for the Taliban government and leader of its delegation, announced on social media platform X that they met with representatives from Russia, India, and Uzbekistan on the sidelines of the meeting.

The Taliban were not invited to the first meeting, and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated that they set unacceptable conditions for attending the second meeting in February, including demands that Afghan civil society members be excluded and that the Taliban be recognized as the country’s legitimate rulers.

The Taliban seized power in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO forces were in the final weeks of their withdrawal following two decades of war. No country has officially recognized the Taliban as Afghanistan’s government, and the U.N. has said recognition is almost impossible while bans on female education and employment remain in place.

In Kabul on Saturday, Mujahid told reporters that the delegation was going to Doha “to seek understanding and resolve issues.”

“We urge all countries not to abandon the Afghan people in difficult times and actively participate in Afghanistan’s reconstruction and economic strengthening,” he said.

Mujahid added that discussions would cover international restrictions on Afghanistan’s financial and banking system, challenges in growing the private sector, and government actions against drug trafficking.

Earlier, the U.N.’s top official in Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, defended the exclusion of Afghan women from the meeting in Doha, asserting that demands for women’s rights would certainly be raised.