Afghan Taliban’s new UN envoy urges quick recognition

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — The Taliban’s newly appointed envoy to the United Nations on Wednesday urged quick world recognition of Afghanistan’s new rulers even as the World Health Organization raised the alarm of an impending health care disaster in the war-wracked country.

The humanitarian crisis is one of the many challenges the Taliban face since their takeover of Afghanistan last month, including renewed threats from the militant Islamic State group, which recently stepped up its attacks, targeting members of the Taliban in its stronghold in the country’s east.

In an emergency measure, the UN aid co-ordinator Martin Griffiths released $45 million in life-saving support Wednesday for Afghanistan from the world body’s emergency fund.

The WHO said Afghanistan’s health system is on the brink of collapse and that urgent action is needed. The statement followed a recent visit to Kabul by a WHO team led by the agency’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who also met with Taliban leaders and others. “The country faces an imminent humanitarian catastrophe,” WHO said, adding that thousands of health facilities are without funding for medical supplies and salaries for health staff. “Many of these facilities have now reduced operations or shut down, forcing health providers to make hard decisions on who to save and who to let die,” WHO said and also emphasized “the need for women to maintain access to education, health care, and to the health workforce.”

Griffiths warned that “allowing Afghanistan’s health-care delivery system to fall apart would be disastrous.” People across Afghanistan, he added, “would be denied access to primary health care such as emergency caesarean sections and trauma care.”

Earlier, the Taliban had written to the United Nations announcing that Suhail Shaheen, a former peace negotiator and spokesperson for the Taliban political office, is their new UN representative . They requested that Shaheen be allowed to address the UN General Assembly underway in New York.

“We have all the requirements needed for recognition of a government. So we hope the UN as a neutral world body recognize the current government of Afghanistan,” Shaheen said Wednesday.

Afghanistan is listed as the final speaker of the ministerial meeting on Monday, and if no world recognition of the Taliban comes by then, Afghan Ambassador Ghulam Isaczai will give the address.

Isaczai is currently recognized as his country’s UN ambassador but the Taliban, who overran most of Afghanistan last month as the U.S. and NATO forces were in the final stages of their chaotic withdrawal from the country, argue that they are now in charge and have the right to appoint ambassadors.