Afghanistan Withdrawing from UN General Debate, 'Their Own Decision', Says UN Spokesperson

The decision by the Afghanistan delegation to withdraw participation from the UN General Debate “was their own decision”, a spokesperson for the Secretary General said, after the country’s envoy appointed by the ousted Ashraf Ghani-government withdrew participation from addressing the world on the final day of the high-level meet. “The decision to withdraw from the Afghan delegation was their own decision. I can’t comment on that. Obviously the General Assembly high-level week is an opportunity for every member state to address the world in a sense, and we wish for every (of) those member states who have that opportunity to take it, Spokesperson for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Stephane Dujarric said at the daily press briefing Monday.

Dujarric was responding to a question on Afghanistan’s withdrawal from participation at the UNGA and that no one will now be speaking for the country at the annual gathering of world leaders. Afghanistan’s Permanent Representative at UN, Ghulam Isaczai was listed to speak on Monday at the final day of the UN General Debate but withdrew his participation over the weekend.

Last week, the Taliban had written to Guterres nominating their spokesman Suhail Shaheen as Afghanistan’s ambassador to the UN and had asked to participate in the high-level 76th session of the UN General Assembly. The letter to Guterres had also indicated that the mission of the Permanent Representative is considered over and that Isaczai no longer represents Afghanistan.

“It’s not so much of a conversation. We received a communication from them by e-mail that they wish to be taken out from the speaker’s list and we did. I mean it’s not so much of a dialogue as information, instruction from a permanent mission about how they want to be on the speaker’s list,” he said, on whether there was any conversation with the Afghan mission on their request to withdraw from the General Debate. According to the latest list of speakers for the last day of the General Debate, Afghanistan and Myanmar are not listed to address the session, even as previous provisional speakers’ lists had the countries’ diplomats listed to speak at the General Debate.

Monica Grayley, spokesperson to the President of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly Abdulla Shahid, confirmed to .

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