Would Biden Veto a Move at UN To Repeal Taliban’s Status as Terrorist Organization?

The next diplomatic move on Afghanistan may well occur at the United Nations, where the Taliban is still designated a terror organization. But is it?Over the weekend the UN humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, flew to Kabul for meetings with Taliban leaders, including the group’s political honcho, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.None of his interlocutors asked him to remove the Taliban from the UN Security Council’s terror list, Mr. Griffiths told me, adding that Afghanistan isn’t the only place where UN humanitarian activity happens despite such listing.To avert what the world body’s secretary general, Antonio Guterres, is calling a “looming humanitarian catastrophe,” an international conference to raise funds for UN relief efforts in Afghanistan is due to convene on September 13 at Geneva. That’s two days after the world marks the 20th anniversary of 9/11, which was hatched in Afghanistan under the Taliban rule.The Taliban was designated as a terror organization even before that event. Security Council Resolution 1267, enacted in October 1999, designated as terrorists a global group, al-Qaeda; a person, Osama bin Laden; and an Afghan organization, the Taliban. The latter were added to the list for their refusal to hand bin Laden over to the UN after he masterminded the terror attacks, a year earlier, in Tanzania and Kenya.For the Security Council to name terrorists as such at that time was a coup. At Turtle Bay, nigh-Talmudic debates over the definition of terrorism were notorious. Attempts at straightforward wording were complicated by Arab countries that sought to exclude “struggle against occupation” from the definition, or otherwise designate Jews as the globe’s only non-victims of terror.Nevertheless, the simultaneous car bombings of the American embassies at Dar a Salaam and Nairobi, in which more than 200 people were killed, caused the council to get over its hesitation and passa resolution on terrorism.New resolutions passed after the 2001 attacks on New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, naming as terrorists additional al Qaeda and Taliban leaders and imposing sanctions. Other organizations were designated and committees, each headed by a council member, were formed to follow up and enforce sanctions.This year’s head of the committee charged with enforcing the Afghanistan-related resolutions is, ironically, India, a country serving a two-year stint as an elected member of the council. India warily eyes neighboring Afghanistan and, even more so, the Taliban-facilitating security organizations of its regional rival, Pakistan.Islamabad, naturally, will welcome a move to remove its proxy Afghan fighting force from the UN’s terror list, ending international sanctions against the Taliban and its leaders.The UN Secretariat, meanwhile, isn’t waiting, moving quickly to raise funds for aid that inevitably would be distributed and controlled by an organization that remains on the Security Council’s list of terrorists to be shunned and sanctioned.What will America do if a council member — say China or Russia — proposes a resolution to remove Afghanistan from the UN’s terror list?America’s top uniformed officer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley, said last week it’s “possible” that America will cooperate with the Taliban against a rival Afghan-based terror group, ISIS-K. Over the weekend several planes filled with American citizens and Afghan allies were held up by the Taliban as a bargaining chip, hoping perhaps that, among other forms of support, Washington would soon extend a formal recognition of its status as ruler of Afghanistan.The UN’s Mr. Griffiths said that Secretary of State Blinken was “pushing us” to meet with the Taliban to provide humanitarian assistance.The first sign that the Taliban-only government announced today would be globally recognized could well be a new Security Council resolution repealing the Taliban’s current status as a terror organization.Don’t expect an American veto.______Twitter: @bennyavni

Would Biden Veto a Move at UN To Repeal Taliban’s Status as Terrorist Organization?

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