Taliban said Rosemary DiCarlo, the U.N. under-secretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, in a meeting with Sirajuddin Haqqani on Sunday said that the next meeting of working groups under the UN-led Doha process on Afghanistan will be held in Kabul.
According to the statement, discussions focused on engagement with the international community, cooperation on counter-narcotics, economic stability, easing restrictions on the private sector and improving the effectiveness of UN humanitarian assistance.
The Taliban-run interior ministry quoted DiCarlo as emphasising the need for continued engagement and reaffirming the United Nations’ commitment to ongoing humanitarian support for Afghanistan.
The statement said that DiCarlo told Haqqani that under the third phase of the Doha talks, launched by the United Nations, working groups established within the process would hold their next session in Afghanistan.
The United Nations has not publicly commented on the details of the meeting or confirmed the venue of future talks.
DiCarlo arrived in Kabul on Saturday, Dec. 24, and has held meetings with several Taliban officials, including Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi. A UN spokesperson previously said the visit was aimed at following up on the UN-led Doha process and advancing what the organisation described as “principled and pragmatic engagement” for the benefit of the Afghan people.
The Doha process, overseen by the United Nations, is intended to coordinate international engagement with the Taliban. Previous meetings have drawn criticism from women’s groups and civil society activists, who say their exclusion has produced no tangible improvement in the rights of women and girls.
International donors and governments have repeatedly said progress in relations with the Taliban remains conditional on improvements in human rights, particularly access to education and employment for women and girls — an issue the Taliban continue to describe as an internal matter.
