UNITED NATIONS:
\nThe Security Council votes Thursday on a resolution to secure the United Nations\u2019 presence in war-torn Afghanistan into the future — unless Russia, which has stymied negotiations this week, vetoes the measure.
\nThe draft text introduced by Norway reshapes the global body\u2019s relations with Kabul to account for last year\u2019s seizure of power by the Taliban, whose rule is still not recognized by the international community and who have yet to name new representatives to the United Nations.
\nAccording to a diplomatic source, Moscow on Wednesday opposed the long-discussed draft of a new mandate for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) on the grounds it lacked \u201cthe consent of the de facto authorities,\u201d namely the Taliban.<\/p>\n
Moscow had filed an initial obstruction a day earlier, complaining — as did China — that human rights were given too much prominence in the text, a diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity. India, Brazil and France also sought changes.<\/p>\n
Even after the measure was redrafted to account for the concerns, Russia was the only one of 15 Security Council members to oppose it.<\/p>\n
The text \u201cdoesn\u2019t reflect our position,\u201d Russia\u2019s deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told AFP, without saying whether Moscow would go so far as to veto the resolution in Thursday\u2019s 10:00 am (1400 GMT) vote.<\/p>\n
The divisions that existed before have only been \u201cfurther ignited by the war in Ukraine\u201d and have now affected UN issues across the spectrum, the ambassador of a Security Council nation told AFP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNITED NATIONS: The Security Council votes Thursday on a resolution to secure the United Nations\u2019 presence in war-torn Afghanistan into the future — unless Russia, which has stymied negotiations this week, vetoes the measure. The draft text introduced by Norway reshapes the global body\u2019s relations with Kabul to account for last year\u2019s seizure of power […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-249957","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n