Afghanistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Ghulam Isaczai, has pulled out of delivering an address to world leaders at the General Assembly on Monday.
Ghulam Isaczai, who represented president Ashraf Ghani’s government that was overthrown last month, was due to defy the Taliban with a speech but his name was removed from the list of speakers.
The spokesperson for the assembly’s president, Monica Grayley said the United Nations received information that Afghanistan had withdrew its participation in the General Debate which was scheduled for today.
The UN said the move came amid competing claims for Afghanistan’s UN seat in New York after the Taliban seized power last month.
Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi had asked that the Taliban be allowed to address the gathering of world leaders at the United Nations and nominated the group’s Doha-based spokesman Suhail Shaheen as Afghanistan’s UN ambassador.
It would be recalled that President Ashraf Ghani fled the country after the Taliban retook Afghanistan 20 years after it was removed from power in a United States-led military invasion.
