New Delhi: The first week of India’s presidency of the UN Security Council was eventful, with a last-minute addition of a special session on Afghanistan and western countries organising an off-the-record meeting on the oil tanker incident.
The highlight of India’s first week of presidency in August was the briefing on Afghanistan. This was not on the schedule when the monthly programme was drawn up and announced. The ball started rolling when Afghan foreign minister Mohammed Haneef Atmar called up India’s external affairs minister to request a special Security Council session on Afghanistan, where violence has spiralled in the last few weeks, and Taliban assault on cities has escalated.
The formal request for a UNSC meeting was made by the ‘penholders’ for the Afghan file – Estonia and Norway. However, not all the P-5 were immediately on board, with most of them deeply invested in Afghanistan and keen to voice their own narratives. However, the intensity of the violence, the visible military victories of the Taliban and the attack on UN staff meant that the immediate need for a session could not be ignored.
The Afghan puzzle
The differing views on the approach towards Afghanistan had already played out earlier, before the Council issued a press statement on Afghanistan on August 3. The text had been a compromise between some members looking to put more pressure on the Taliban and others stating that both the insurgent group and the Afghan government had to shoulder responsibility for reducing violence and meaningful engagement in talks.
Afghan security forces patrol at the Kunduz, Afghanistan April 30, 2015. Photo: Reuters/Omar Sobhani
For India, the timing of the UNSC session before the ‘Troika Plus’ meeting on August 11 in Doha was crucial. The extended Troika format comprising Russia, China, United States, and Pakistan have already met twice this year. In Doha, they are expected to provide a fillip to the stalled peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, who will also be part of the summit.
Russia had stated that New Delhi was not invited to the ‘Troika Plus’ meeting as India did not have influence over the Taliban.
On the day the meeting was held, news came in of further violence, including the targeted killing of the Afghan government’s spokesperson in Kabul, whose responsibility was taken by the Taliban.
Also read: Taliban Assassinate Afghan Govt Spokesman, Advance on Provincial Capitals
Speaking at the session on August 6, Deborah Lyons, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said that Afghanistan was at a “dangerous turning point” – poised between a genuine political negotiation or an increasingly brutal conflict.
“There is a striking contrast between the activity on the battlefield and the quiet stalemate at the negotiation table in Doha –where we should see the opposite: quiet on the battlefield and engagement around the negotiating table”.
Lyons noted that the Taliban had changed its military strategy to target large urban centres, which has seen a strong response from Afghan security forces. She warned that the intense urban fighting might lead to severe violations of international humanitarian law and “may quickly amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity”.
She also noted that the reports of human rights abuses in territory captured by the Taliban “are so consistent, so uniform, and so urgent that we simply cannot wait for them to be proven before bringing them to your attention”.
Lyons proposed that members states who were in touch with the Taliban political commission should convey that the travel exemptions and the protocol accorded to them by many countries were “predicated on a commitment and progress in the peace process”. She also noted later that the Taliban need to be told that further extension of travel exemption beyond September 20 will be based on “real progress on peace”.
Stating that it was difficult to describe “the mood of dread we are faced with every day”, the senior UN official suggested six immediate steps for the Council. These range from an “unambiguous statement” from UNSC that attacks against cities must stop now to giving a more significant mandate to the UN to facilitate the negotiations.
Asserting that the next weeks will be “decisive,” Lyons said that the international community must give a united, strong signal not only in public statements but in bilateral communications with both parties that “it is essential to stop fighting and negotiate, in that order”.
As a representative of Afghan civil society, Shaharzad Akbar, chairperson of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, gave an impassioned speech urging the Council to use “full range of political, diplomatic, human rights and humanitarian tools and interventions to save lives and prevent further and more horrific atrocities”.
Apologising if her remarks were repetitive or less than coherent, Akbar said that she was “exhausted and in mourning, hoping that this time, speaking to this forum will make a difference”. “Afghans are watching, amidst fear and despair, if this Council and the international community will do all it can to revive our hope in peace”.
People on vehicles, holding Taliban flags, gather near the Friendship Gate crossing point in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border town of Chaman, Pakistan July 14, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Abdul Khaliq Achakzai
The Afghan ambassador Ghulam M. Isaczai also urged the Council to effectively implement the UNSC-approved sanctions regime to pressurise the Taliban to engage in meaningful peace talks with the Afghan government negotiating team.
The ambassador emphasised the foreign groups fighting alongside the Taliban, including Al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and other regional terror groups.
“There is mounting evidence that the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan which has pledged allegiance to ISIL fought alongside the Taliban in Faryab, Jowzjan, Takhar, and Badakhshan provinces where they are currently present with their families under the Taliban’s control,” said Isaczai.
The Afghan envoy would certainly hope that the presence of East Turkestan Islamic Movement, with its focus on Xinjiang province, would get the attention of China, which had recently hosted an official delegation from the Taliban.
He also asserted that the Taliban “continue to enjoy a safe haven in and supply and logistics line extended to their war machine from Pakistan”.
Also read: Is the Violent Endgame in Afghanistan Leading Up to a New ‘Great Game’?
The United States warned that the Taliban could become an international pariah if it considered a military takeover, while Russia urged all sides to be “flexible – in deeds rather in words”. “We believe that blame game would hardly be able to promote this task,” said the Russian envoy.
China pressed the US to ensure that it was not washing its hands off the Afghan crisis to regional countries by withdrawing its troops. The Chinese ambassador urged the international community not to allow Afghanistan to become a gathering place for terror groups, naming Islamic State, Al Qaeda, ETIM and the Pakistan Taliban as groups that continue to launch frequent attacks in Afghanistan.
Besides Afghanistan, India was the only country that referred to terrorist supply chains in the region without taking Pakistan’s name.
After the public briefing, the UNSC went into closed-door consultations. A few hours after the Council disbursed, Pakistan’s permanent representative to UN, Munir Akram, held a press conference accusing India of not allowing Pakistan to participate in the session.
The presence of non-members in a UNSC meeting is governed by Rule 37 of the Provisional Rules of Procedure. It provides for a non-member to be invited “as the result of a decision of the Security Council” if the body considers that the interests of that state are particularly affected. With decisions taken by consensus, no member was strongly pushing for Pakistan’s presence at the meeting within the Council.
This is not the first time in recent weeks that a member state has expressed ire with a UNSC president for not allowing participation in a meeting.
In a letter made public last week, St Kitts and Nevis, chair of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), complained that France, president of UNSC in July, excluded the regional body from a closed-door meeting on Haiti on July 8 following the presidential assassination.
Children stand outside a house and next to a car, both burned after a firefight between police and the suspected assassins of President Jovenel Moise who was shot dead early Wednesday at his home, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti July 8, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Estailove St-Val
Towards the end of last week, the UNSC issued a press statement that condemned the killing of 12 people, including nine Chinese workers, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in a “cowardly terrorist attack”. The Chinese workers were killed when their bus plunged into a ravine near the Dasu hydropower project in the upper Kohistan district. The press statement was issued over two weeks after the incident, which took place on July 14, and is likely a reflection of the to-and-fro between Pakistan and China over the attack.
There had been conflicting initial versions from the Pakistan government. While the Pakistan foreign minister termed it an accident, other senior members of the establishment called it a terror attack. China also sent its investigators to join the Pakistani probe, while the Pakistani foreign minister discussed the incident during his visit to Beijing.
Diplomatic sources confirmed that China had initiated the statement, which had standard text deployed to condemn similar violent incidents worldwide. It is unclear why China pushed for the UNSC press statement about three weeks after the attack rather than in its immediate aftermath.
Outside the UNSC chambers
As mentioned earlier, there were two meetings held under the ‘any other business’ format last week – an unusually high number. Minutes are not kept of AOB meetings, which are held behind closed doors. Nor are mandatory press statements issued by the Council president at the end of such meetings.
India has been at the receiving end of meetings held in the AOB format after China initiated several discussions on Kashmir after the dilution of Article 370 in August 2019. While China had proposed a public statement, it was opposed by other P-5 members. Instead, there was a dramatic media stakeout where all the member states played to the gallery.
There was no attempt to propose a common public statement in both AOB meetings, as reaching a consensus was impossible.
A discussion on Georgia in the AOB format is an annual affair, with the last such discussion held in August 2020. Following the meeting, six UNSC members who had requested the meeting, Estonia, France, Ireland, Norway, the UK and the US, issued a joint statement that reaffirmed Georgia’s territorial sovereignty and called for the removal of Russian military presence from Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Before the meeting, Russian deputy permanent representative Dmitry Polyanskiy asserted that “independent Abkhazia and South Ossetia is the reality which cannot be ignored”.
The Mercer Street. Picture taken December 31, 2015. Johan Victor/Handout via REUTERS
The second AOB meeting responded to recent developments of a Liberia-flagged oil tanker, Mercer Street, being attacked off the coast of Oman, resulting in the death of two crew members who are British and Romanian nationals.
In a letter dated August 3, the UK, Liberia, and Romania wrote to the UNSC president that as per “initial assessments”, the oil tanker “was attacked by Iran off the coast of Oman using one or more unmanned aerial vehicles”. Israel also dispatched a similar letter. Iran responded a day later with its missive that none of the countries had shared “any shred of evidence to substantiate their claims”.
Diplomatic sources confirmed concerns within the Council among the rest of the member states that Iran was being named without any substantial evidence. It was not surprising that there was no attempt to have a public statement. Instead, the western UNSC members gave their separate versions outside to the media, with the Iranian representative also presenting her public statement.
This week in UNSC
The Mercer Street incident would probably spill into Monday’s open debate on maritime security, where member states would certainly be talking about freedom of navigation and safety of sea routes.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be chairing India’s signature event on August 9. The briefers will be Democratic Republic of the Congo president Félix Tshisekedi, as African Union chairperson, UN Secretary General’s Chef de Cabinet Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti and Executive Director of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime Ghada Fathi Waly. Heads of states from other member states are also expected to give statements.
The presidential statement, to be issued after the meeting, was finalised on Friday (August 6).
This week’s two other briefings are closed consultations on the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and an open meeting on Somalia.
Kenya is organising a virtual Arria-formula meeting on “Humanitarian action: overcoming challenges in situations of armed conflict and counter-terrorism operations” during this week.
This is a weekly column that tracks the UNSC during India’s current term as a non-permanent member. Previous columns can be found here.
