UN Chief, Envoys in Key Talks on Afghanistan Crisis

In an increasingly desperate attempt to discover ways to persuade Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, UN chief Antonio Guterres will convene foreign envoys at a covert location in Doha on Monday.

The Taliban administration's decision to prohibit girls from attending school and the majority of women from working, including for UN organisations, has made Guterres' predicament even worse. This catastrophe is regarded by the UN as the greatest humanitarian crisis in history.

According to diplomats, the Taliban administration, which retook control of the country in August 2021, won't be present at the negotiations with officials from roughly 25 other nations and international organisations.

"Any kind of recognition of the Taliban is completely off the table," declared Vedant Patel, spokesman for the US State Department.

However, aside from reiterating that the Taliban leadership is not among the attendees, the UN has declined to reveal either the location of the talks in Qatar's capital or the names of the participants who will join Guterres.

According to diplomats, the UN secretary-general will provide an update on an investigation into the international organization's crucial humanitarian effort in Afghanistan, which was ordered in April after Afghan women were barred from working for UN agencies there.

The UN has stated that it must make a "appalling choice" about whether to continue running its sizable operation in the 38 million-person nation.

The UN Security Council, which has been torn apart by the conflict in Ukraine and other international conflicts, came together on Thursday to denounce the restrictions placed on Afghan women and girls and call on all nations to seek "an urgent reversal" of the current policies.

The restriction, according to the Afghan foreign ministry, "is an internal social matter of Afghanistan," and it was rejected.