The UN News Centre reported earlier today that the UN 1267 Committee removed five senior Taliban members from its list of individuals subject to sanctions. You can read the UN Security Council news release here.
The 1267 Committee, officially called the “Security Council Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee,” was established by UN resolution 1267 (downloadable here), passed in 1999. The committee was established to oversee 1267’s demand that states:
Freeze funds and other financial resources, including funds derived or generated from property owned or controlled directly or indirectly by the Taliban, or by any undertaking owned or controlled by the Taliban, as designated by the Committee established by paragraph 6 below, and ensure that neither they nor any other funds or financial resources so designated are made available, by their nationals or by any persons within their territory, to or for the benefit of the Taliban or any undertaking owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by the Taliban, except as may be authorized by the Committee on a case-by-case basis on the grounds of humanitarian need;
The Security Council periodically expanded and altered this regime, especially after the September 11 attacks. One notable revision was resolution 1730 (downloadable here), passed in 2006. 1730 established, for the first time, a process for receiving and dealing with de-listing requests. The Security Council passed 1730 months after a report commissioned by the UN Office of Legal Affairs concluded:
When imposing sanctions on individuals in accordance with Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the Security Council must strive for discharging its principal duty to maintain or restore international peace and security while, at the same time, respecting the human rights and fundamental freedoms of targeted individuals to the greatest possible extent. There is a duty of the Council duly to balance the general and particular interests which are at stake. Every measure having a negative impact on human rights and freedoms of a particular group or category of persons must be necessary and proportionate to the aim the measure is meant to achieve.
However, the 1267 Committee’s recent removal of five senior Taliban members from the list was not a result of a petitioning process, and according to the Security Council news release, was “a result of the review of the Consolidated List called for in paragraph 25 of Security Council resolution 1822 (2008).” It seems likely, though, that the move was meant to pave the way for political reconciliation with the Taliban in Afghanistan. U.S. officials have indicated a willingness to include the Taliban in the Afghan political process (see Financial Times on Stanley McChrystal and The New York Times on Robert Gates). The Afghan government, at this week’s conference in London, is presenting its plan lure the Taliban into Afghan life under Karzai rule. The two track program involves amnesty and jobs for foot soldiers and political reconciliation for senior Taliban leaders. The preconditions the Afghan government is establishing for reconciliation is Taliban renunciation of violence and Al Qaeda and acceptance of the Afghan constitution.
Members of the Afghan government and the Taliban have blamed the lack of international support for the failure of political reconciliation thus far. Al Jazeera reports:
In an interview to Al Jazeera, Omar Zakhilwal, Afghanistan’s finance minister, confirmed that talks had been held.
“There has been engagement”, he told Al Jazeera.
“But because of the lack of international support for the president’s initiatives, we couldn’t take the next steps of promising them what they needed to hear from us: assurances, first and foremost, with the respect to their security, and second, that they will be treated just like any other Afghan or a politician.”
Separately, Habibullah Fawzi, the former Taliban ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said Karzai wants to negotiate with the Taliban, but has failed failed to do so because the Afghan government’s views differ from those of the US and foreign forces.
“The Afghan government could have started a dialogue with Taliban if it had had a unified stance with the international community,” he told Al Jazeera.
“However, they lost that opportunity, and instead of initiating talks, the government and foreign forces started to strike Taliban fighters in several areas and on the borders and take them to detention centres like Guantanamo and others.
“This has forced Taliban to wage war.”
Thus the recent actions of the 1267 Committee may augur hope for Karzai-Taliban political reconciliation.
