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Afghan Government urges Security Council meeting on Taliban threat

Afghan Government urges Security Council meeting on Taliban threat

The head of Afghanistan's Government - which is at war with Taliban forces in the country - has requested an urgent meeting of the Security Council to discuss the conflict's threat to regional peace, according to documents released today at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

President Burhanuddin Rabbani, in identical letters to the Secretary-General and Security Council President, proposed that the meeting be convened to address "the presence of foreign military and armed personnel in Afghanistan and how it poses a threat to regional and international peace and security."

Commenting on the recent terror attacks in the United States, President Rabbani says he has long made efforts at UN forums and in bilateral meetings "to warn the world of the threats of terrorist activities by the Pakistan-Taliban-bin-Laden axis in the Taliban-occupied parts of Afghanistan."

According to the letter, the people of Afghanistan are "hostage" to terrorism. "The presence of these groups, which have occupied parts of Afghanistan and are busy implementing their ideologically and politically inhuman agenda in Afghanistan and the region, has caused a great deal of suffering and torment by means of policies and practices such as ethnic and religious cleansing, gender apartheid, arbitrary arrest, extra-judiciary killing, havoc of peoples' means of livelihood and destruction of cultural and historic artifacts and heritage, as well as crimes against humanity and crimes of war."

The letter also notes that "the teaching of bigotry and hatred against humanity… runs counter to the genuine message of Islam, which demands peaceful coexistence with other religions and peoples of the world."