South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Florida Rep. Michael Waltz sent a letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday urgi...
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Florida Rep. Michael Waltz sent a letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday urging the organization not to recognize the Taliban leadership of Afghanistan.
“The Taliban CANNOT gain a seat at the UN. If seated, Afghanistan’s legit government would be unseated & a brutal, terrorist regime would be legitimized,” Waltz tweeted.
“In September 2021, it was reported that Afghan Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi sent a letter to you requesting that he be allowed to address the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly,” the GOP lawmakers wrote to Guterres.
“It was also reported that the Afghan Taliban had nominated Suhail Shaheen to represent the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in the United Nations. Such an appointment would remove Ghulam Isaczai, the representative of the legitimate government of Afghanistan,” they added.
Graham and Waltz argued the move would undermine the values of the UN.
“We believe that the appointment of a representative of the Afghan Taliban to the United Nations would be contrary to the very values that the United Nations seeks to promote,” they said.
“The Afghan Taliban repress the rights of women and girls, hunt down and murder individuals who have helped the United States and other NATO forces, suppress the freedom of speech and the press, and are strengthening ties with foreign terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda and the Haqqani Network.
“Any government that acts in this manner deserves no recognition on the world stage,” the lawmakers added.
They emphasized that denying recognition to the Taliban would follow a UN precedent set in 1996.
“Following the rise of the Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan in 1996, the United Nations did not grant recognition to the Afghan Taliban government and continued to recognize the previous Afghan government representative,” Graham and Waltz wrote.
“We believe that the United Nations should follow this precedent and not grant recognition to the new Afghan Taliban government,” they continued.
“The United Nations must resist the ease of short term thinking and consider the ramifications of seating a brutal regime that has within its ranks members of designated foreign terrorist organizations.”
Waltz, a veteran, called a recent Taliban parade featuring U.S. military vehicles “disgusting.”
“Future American soldiers will have to deal with this,” he tweeted.
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