UNITED NATIONS (Dispatches) – Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United Nations pulled out of delivering an address to world leaders at the General Assembly Monday, a UN spokesperson said.
Ghulam Isaczai, who represented president Ashraf Ghani’s government that was ousted last month, had been due to defy the Taliban with a speech but his name was removed from the list of speakers early Monday.
“The country withdraws its participation in the general debate,” Monica Grayley, a spokeswoman for the assembly’s president, confirmed to AFP.
She added that Afghanistan’s mission to the UN had not cited a reason for the withdrawal.
The Taliban wrote a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last week requesting that its new foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, be allowed to “participate.”
The letter insisted that Isaczai “no longer represents” Afghanistan at the global body.
The letter said that the Taliban had nominated their Doha-based spokesman Suhail Shaheen as Afghanistan’s permanent representative to the UN.
Meanwhile, the Taliban called for the resumption of international flights to the Afghan capital Kabul, saying all technical issues at the Hamid Karzai International airport have been resolved, amid some signs of normalcy following the group’s takeover of the country last month.
Abdul Qahar Balkhi, Taliban-appointed spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks in a statement on Sunday, expressing hope that proper commercial services would resume shortly.
“The airport is fully operational for domestic and international flights,” he said, adding that the Taliban interim government “assures all airlines of its full cooperation and expects all airlines and countries that had previously flown to Kabul to resume their flights as before.”
Kabul airport’s facilities were badly damaged in the wake of a chaotic U.S. evacuation of 124,000 foreigners.
The airport had been closed since the end of the messy U.S.-led airlift of its citizens and other Western nationals on August 30, and only a limited number of aid and passenger flights have been operating –namely from Iran and Pakistan.