Afghan Taliban administration, Myanmar junta not allowed into United Nations for now

9:29 pm Wednesday, December 14th, 2022

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – A decision on whether the Afghan Taliban administration and the Myanmar junta can send a United Nations ambassador to New York has been postponed for a second time, but could be reconsidered in the next nine months, according to a U.N. credentials committee report.

The 193-member U.N. General Assembly is on Friday due to approve the report, which also deferred a decision on rival claims to Libya’s U.N. seat. The nine-member U.N. credentials committee includes Russia, China and the United States.

The deferment of the decisions leaves the current envoys in the seats for their countries, diplomats said.

Competing claims were again made for the seats of Myanmar and Afghanistan with the Taliban administration and Myanmar’s junta pitted against envoys of the governments they ousted last year. U.N. acceptance of the Taliban administration or Myanmar’s junta would be a step toward the international recognition sought by both.

The U.N. General Assembly last year backed postponing a decision on the credentials of Myanmar and Afghanistan.

A rival claim was also made this year for Libya’s U.N. seat – currently held by the Government of National Unity in Tripoli – by a “Government of National Stability” led by Fathi Bashagha and backed by a parliament in the country’s east.

The U.N. credentials committee met on Dec. 12 and agreed, without a vote, to “postpone its consideration of the credentials” for Myanmar, Afghanistan and Libya “and to revert to consideration of these credentials at a future time in the seventy-seventh session,” which ends mid-September next year.

The Taliban seized power in mid-August last year from the internationally recognized government. When the Taliban last ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, the ambassador of the government they toppled remained the U.N. envoy after the credentials committee deferred its decision on the seat.

Myanmar’s junta seized power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in February last year.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)