The Taliban Want A Chance To Address The U.N. That’s Unlikely To Happen Soon

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U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres makes a speech during the 76th session of United Nations General Assembly, in New York, United States on Tuesday.

Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

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Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Asia
Read What The Taliban Told NPR About Their Plans For Afghanistan

They want the nine-member credentials committee, which includes the U.S., Russia and China, to recognize the Taliban and its ambassador before then. But the committee isn’t scheduled to meet until Monday, and a senior U.S. State Department official told the AP that the committee «would take some time to deliberate on that matter.

That timeline suggests that even if the Taliban get their wish to be seated, their first opportunity to address the General Assembly would likely not come until the body’s next session — scheduled for a year from now.

Asia
The Taliban Say They’ve Changed. Experts Aren’t Buying It

Complicating matters further is that several ministers in the Taliban’s interim government are on a U.N. terrorism watch list, the AP says.

When the Taliban were last in power in Afghanistan, from 1996-2001, the U.N. never recognized that government.

U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told the AP that Secretary-General António Guterres had received the Taliban request on letterhead from «Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, signed by «Ameer Khan Muttaqi as «Minister of Foreign Affairs.