UN chief, international envoys to discuss Afghanistan crisis in Doha today

Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) Antonio Guterres speaks during the 5th Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC5) in Doha on March 4, 2023. (AFP/File)
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Updated 01 May 2023
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UN chief, international envoys to discuss Afghanistan crisis in Doha today

  • UN chief to meet international envoys at secret location in Doha to find ways to influence Taliban 
  • Taliban, who have imposed restrictions on women in Afghanistan, will be absent from talks, say diplomats

DOHA: UN chief Antonio Guterres will gather international envoys at a secret location in Doha on Monday in an increasingly desperate bid to find ways to influence Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers.

Considered the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis by the United Nations, Guterres’s quandary has been deepened by the Taliban administration’s move to stop girls going to school and most women from working, even for UN agencies.

The Taliban government, which took back power in August 2021, will be absent from the talks with representatives from about 25 countries and international organizations, according to diplomats.

Ahead of the talks, a small group of women staged a protest in Kabul on Saturday to oppose any international recognition of the Taliban government. But the UN and Western powers are adamant this will not be discussed.

“Any kind of recognition of the Taliban is completely off the table,” said US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel.

Apart from confirming that the Taliban leadership is not on the list of participants, the UN has refused to provide any specifics including the location in Qatar’s capital or who will join Guterres.

The Taliban’s deputy minister for refugees Mohammad Arsala Kharoti said on Sunday that “such meetings will not have any results.”

“As long as they don’t establish proper relations with the Emirate (Taliban-ruled Afghanistan) and no representation of the Emirate is present, these meetings won’t be successful to a great extent,” he told AFP at Kabul airport.

In Doha, the UN secretary-general is also to give an update on a review of the world body’s critical relief operation in Afghanistan, ordered in April after authorities had stopped Afghan women from working with UN agencies, diplomats said.

The UN has said it faces an “appalling choice” over whether to maintain its huge operation in the country of 38 million.

Torn apart over the Ukraine war and other global tensions, the UN Security Council powers united on Thursday to condemn the curbs on Afghan women and girls and urge all countries to seek “an urgent reversal” of the policies.

The Afghan foreign ministry rejected the call and said the ban “is an internal social matter of Afghanistan.”

Richard Gowan, UN expert for the International Crisis Group, an independent NGO, said the UN is “in a trap over Afghanistan.”

“Guterres has to untangle a very complicated knot. He needs to find a way to keep aid flowing into Afghanistan, but the Taliban ban on women is a huge blow to the UN’s ability to operate in the country.”

Gowan said the international community wants the UN to maintain its critical presence.

“There are lots of differences among Security Council members over Afghanistan. But everyone, including Russia and China, agrees it is better to have the UN in Kabul than not.”

The United Nations has given few indications of what proposals could be made at the meeting.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Friday the aim “is to reinvigorate international engagement around common objectives for a durable way forward on Afghanistan.”

The global body also wants “unity or commonality of message” on women’s and human rights, countering terrorism and drug trafficking.

“Recognition is not an issue,” Dujarric insisted. Whether the Taliban government takes up Afghanistan’s UN seat is for the UN General Assembly to decide.

But the UN and other groups have been holding increasingly intense discussions on how to engage with the Taliban authorities and possibly offer incentives for change.

US Afghanistan envoy Thomas West has been traveling across West Asia in recent weeks meeting different governments and groups.

Last year the United States moved $3.5 billion of seized Afghan assets into a Swiss-based fund to pay for relief and imports that are not controlled by the Taliban authorities.

Suggestions have been made that the US administration should consider easing sanctions.

“Much as we might prefer to see regime change in Afghanistan, for the foreseeable future a reasonably stable and sufficiently capable Taliban government is needed to help facilitate humanitarian programs, neutralize ISKP, and avert state collapse and civil war,” Washington think tank Middle East Institute said in a report last week.


Iran says it’s open to temporary uranium enrichment limits

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Iran says it’s open to temporary uranium enrichment limits

  • Iran described Sunday’s talks as “difficult but useful” while a senior US official said Washington was “encouraged” and both sides confirmed plans for future negotiations

TEHRAN: Iran is open to accepting temporary limits on its uranium enrichment, its deputy foreign minister said Tuesday, while adding that talks with the US have yet to address such specifics.

Tehran and Washington on Sunday held their fourth round of nuclear talks, which kicked off last month, marking their highest-level contact since the US in 2018 pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal.

“For a limited period of time, we can accept a series of restrictions on the level and volume of enrichment,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi.

“We have not yet gone into details about the level and volume of enrichment,” he said, quoted by Tasnim news agency.

Iran currently enriches uranium to 60 percent purity — far above the 3.67 percent limit set in the 2015 deal but below the 90 percent needed for weapons-grade material.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that Iran was the only country in the world without nuclear weapons that enriches uranium to that level.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said at the latest talks that the right to enrich uranium was “non-negotiable,” while US chief negotiator Steve Witkoff called it a “red line.”

The Islamic republic began rolling back its commitments to the deal a year after the US withdrawal.

Since returning to office in January, Trump has revived his “maximum pressure” approach against Tehran. While backing nuclear diplomacy, he also warned of potential military action if it fails.

Iran described Sunday’s talks as “difficult but useful” while a senior US official said Washington was “encouraged” and both sides confirmed plans for future negotiations.

The talks are being held in “full coordination” with the supreme leader, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said, according to a presidency statement on Tuesday.

“In the negotiations, we will not retreat from our principles in any way, but at the same time, we do not want tensions,” he added.

Also on Tuesday, Iran’s atomic energy agency chief, Mohammad Eslami, described the country’s nuclear industry as its “wealth and strength,” according to ISNA news agency.

Despite the talks, Washington has continued to impose sanctions targeting Iran’s nuclear program and oil industry, with the latest announced on Monday.

“There is no doubt that there is a lot of pressure on us,” said Ali Larijani, a close adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, while noting that not all of Iran’s problems were due to the sanctions.


Lebanese PM reviews security measures at Beirut airport

Updated 39 min 30 sec ago
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Lebanese PM reviews security measures at Beirut airport

  • UNIFIL forces announce discovery of more than 225 weapon caches south of Litani River

BEIRUT: Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam made an unexpected visit to Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport on Tuesday to review flight and safety measures.

The premier highlighted his commitment to maintaining the facility as a bright gateway for Lebanon to the world.

Salam, accompanied by Minister of Public Works and Transport Fayez Rasamny, held a meeting with airport security chief Brig. Gen. Fadi Kfoury and other officials.

According to Salam’s media office, the airport officials briefed him “on the measures implemented to enhance security and safety at the airport, facilitate the entry and exit of travelers, expedite transit operations, reduce waiting times and improve the overall travel experience.”

The visit fulfilled a request by the ambassadors of Gulf countries to Lebanon, who held a meeting with Salam last week to encourage the return of Gulf tourists to Lebanon.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun concluded his visit to Kuwait on Monday, which included discussions with Emir Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah at Bayan Palace. The emir highlighted Kuwait’s commitment to strengthening Lebanese-Gulf and Arab relations.

Lebanon has a historic opportunity to define its future and overcome all past challenges, he said.

According to a statement from the Lebanese presidency, the Kuwaiti emir expressed “Kuwait’s satisfaction with the results of the meeting of the ambassadors of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries with the Lebanese prime minister, which discussed the return of GCC citizens to Lebanon.”

Al-Sabah also praised the security cooperation between the two countries and condemned Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

Meanwhile, UNIFIL forces on Monday announced the discovery of more than 225 weapon caches south of the Litani River.

All weapons were transferred to Lebanese military authorities.

A UNIFIL statement said that the Lebanese Armed Forces have reestablished a presence at more than 120 permanent positions throughout southern Lebanon with peacekeeping support.

However, complete border deployment remains hindered by Israel’s “military presence on Lebanese territory.”


Gaza rescuers says Israeli strikes kill 28 near hospital

Updated 13 May 2025
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Gaza rescuers says Israeli strikes kill 28 near hospital

  • Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said “according to our crews on the ground, 28 martyrs have been recovered from the area“
  • The Israeli military said in a statement that they had struck “Hamas terrorists”

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency said that Israeli strikes on Tuesday killed at least 28 people in the area surrounding the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, where the Israeli military said it hit a Hamas “command and control center.”

Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that “according to our crews on the ground, 28 martyrs have been recovered from the area” surrounding the hospital in the south of the Palestinian territory.

Ahmad Radwan, civil defense media officer in the southern Gaza Strip, had previously put the initial toll at seven dead and 30 injured “following the occupation’s bombing of the vicinity and courtyard of the European Hospital.”

The Israeli military said in a statement that they had struck “Hamas terrorists in a command and control center located in an underground terrorist infrastructure site beneath the European hospital in Khan Yunis.”

“The Hamas terrorist organization continues to use hospitals in the Gaza Strip for terrorist activity, demonstrating its cynical and brutal use of the civilian population in the hospital and its surroundings,” it added.

“It was an utterly catastrophic scene,” Amro Tabash, a local photojournalist, told AFP.

“Everyone inside the hospital — patients and wounded alike — was running in fear, some on crutches, others screaming for their children, while others were being dragged on beds,” he said.

Earlier in the day, the Israeli military said it had struck Hamas militants “operating from within a command and control center” at Nasser Hospital, also in Khan Yunis.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the strike killed two people and wounded several others.

Bassal said that “the Israeli army bombed the surgery building at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis at dawn on Tuesday, killing journalist Hassan Aslih.”

The Israeli military had previously accused Aslih of participating in Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.

Israel resumed its military offensive in Gaza on March 18 after a two-month truce in its war against Hamas, which was triggered by the Palestinian group’s 2023 attack.


Israeli authorities release 9 Gazan detainees 

Updated 13 May 2025
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Israeli authorities release 9 Gazan detainees 

  • Since October 2023, Israel has arrested more than 10,700 Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and inside Israel
  • The number of those arrested in the Gaza Strip is estimated to be in the thousands

LONDON: Israeli authorities released nine Palestinian detainees from Gaza among the thousands arrested during military actions in the enclave since late 2023.

Israel has arrested more than 10,700 Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and inside Israel since October 2023. The number of those arrested in the Gaza Strip is estimated to be in the thousands, according to the Wafa news agency. However, Israel’s prison authority acknowledged that until April, there were 1,747 prisoners from the Gaza Strip in its jails.

The Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, two organizations monitoring prisoners’ conditions, have consistently accused Israel of implementing torture practices against Palestinians in detention, including starvation, medical negligence, solitary confinement and abuse.

At least 66 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli prisons since the outbreak of the Gaza war in 2023. Among those who died, 40 were from the Gaza Strip.

Since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories in 1967, 303 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli custody, with 75 bodies still being held by Israel.


17 Palestinian children return to Gaza after medical treatment in Jordan

Updated 13 May 2025
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17 Palestinian children return to Gaza after medical treatment in Jordan

  • The nation’s ‘Medical Corridor’ initiative aims to alleviate humanitarian suffering of Palestinians amid war in Gaza
  • 12 other children from Gaza continue to receive medical treatment at Jordanian hospitals

LONDON: Seventeen Palestinian children and their families crossed the King Hussein Bridge on Tuesday on their way back to the Gaza Strip after receiving medical treatment at hospitals in Jordan.

Their care was provided as part of the country’s “Medical Corridor” initiative, which provides urgent medical aid for people from the coastal territory in coordination with the Jordanian Armed Forces, the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization. The children were part of the first group of evacuees brought from Gaza on March 4.

All 17 fully recovered after receiving specialized medical care, the Jordan News Agency reported. Twelve others are still being treated in Jordanian hospitals.

More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, which began in October 2023. According to a UNICEF report, about 15,000 children have died during the conflict, more than 34,000 have been injured, and nearly 1 million displaced.

The Medical Corridor is one of several Jordanian initiatives that aim to alleviate the suffering of Palestinians amid the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Others include the deployment of field hospitals, humanitarian convoys carrying medical and food aid, a mobile bakery, and the evacuations of children and the wounded.