The Doha meetings are “part of a process and not a one-off,” and women and civil society will continue to be involved, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Sunday, according to Reuters. However, he did not specify whether they would attend the main sessions.
Sources told Amu on Sunday that a group of civil society representatives from Afghanistan will attend discussions with some participants of the Doha meeting on July 2, a day after the two-day meeting concludes.
“The meetings aim to encourage the de facto authorities to engage with the international community through a coordinated and structured approach for the benefit of the Afghan people,” Dujarric said. “Human rights and the rights of women and girls will feature prominently in all the discussions, certainly from the part of the U.N.”
Human Rights Watch previously claimed that the United Nations had largely removed the issue of women’s rights from the Doha meeting agenda.
The meeting in Doha, hosted by the U.N. Secretary-General, is set to take place in six days, with the Taliban expected to send a delegation to engage with special representatives from 25 countries.
It is anticipated that Rosemary DiCarlo, the U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, and Roza Otunbayeva, head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), will meet separately with Afghan civil society representatives after their discussions with the Taliban.
