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Slap sanctions on Taliban chief: India
UNITED NATIONS: India has demanded that the United Nations slap sanctions against the newly elected Taliban leader in Afghanistan.
UNITED NATIONS: India has demanded that the United Nations slap sanctions against the newly elected Taliban leader in Afghanistan.
“It is sheer folly that the leader of a proscribed entity is not yet designated as a terrorist individual,” India’s permanent representative to the UN, ambassador Syed Akbaruddin, said during a Security Council debate on the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on Tuesday.
Supporting New Zealand’s position that the anomaly should be corrected, Akbaruddin said the new Taliban leader should be sanctioned.
The Taliban had named Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada, a conservative cleric in his 50s, as its new leader after Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in an American drone strike last month.
The United States state department’s deputy spokesperson Mark Toner had said in a press briefing then that Akhundzada was not on any kind of terrorism designated list.
Akbaruddin further emphasised that groups and individuals perpetrating violence against the people and government of Afghanistan cannot have safe havens and should not be allowed to exercise control and wield influence over any part of Afghanistan’s territory.
“This, in our view, is critical for lasting peace in the country,” he said.
