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Afghan Leader Reportedly Pushing UN to Trim Taliban Blacklist

12 July 2010 21:44 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. A report in a prominent U.S. newspaper says Afghanistan’s president plans to ask the United Nations to remove as many as 50 former Taliban members from a U.N. terrorism blacklist, APA reports quoting â€œThe Voice of Americaâ€.

The Washington Post newspaper quotes an unnamed senior Afghan official says the request to remove the individuals from the list is part of a bid to advance reconciliation talks with the Taliban.

President Hamid Karzai has recently begun to press for a political settlement to Afghanistan’s nearly nine-year old conflict and is reaching out to former Taliban officials who could help in that effort.

The newspaper says the delisting process has met with resistance from U.N. officials who are demanding evidence the ex-Taliban members have renounced violence, embraced the new Afghan constitution, and severed links with the Taliban and al-Qaida.

The U.N. list imposes a travel ban and other restrictions on 137 individuals tied to the Taliban.

The Washington Post said Richard Holbrooke, U.S. President Barack Obama’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, traveled to New York last week to meet with U.N. officials to press them to move forward on the delisting process.

However, the newspaper noted the U.S. opposes the removing of some of the most violent members of the Taliban, including the leader of the movement, Mullah Omar.