According to a report from the United Nations Credentials Committee, a decision regarding whether the administration of the Afghan Taliban and the junta in Myanmar is authorized to send a United Nations (UN) ambassador to New York has been postponed for the second time, but it may be reconsidered within the next nine months.
The report, which also delayed a decision on rival claims to Libya’s UN seat, is scheduled to be approved by the 193-member UN General Assembly (UNGA) on Friday. The United States, China, and Russia are among the nine members of the UN credentials committee.
According to diplomats, the current envoys will continue to represent their countries because the decisions will be delayed.
The Taliban administration and Myanmar’s junta squared off against envoys of the governments they toppled last year for the seats of Myanmar and Afghanistan. A step toward the international recognition that the junta in Myanmar or the Taliban administration seeks would be UN recognition.
The United Nations General Assembly supported delaying a decision regarding Myanmar’s and Afghanistan’s credentials.
This year, a “Government of National Stability” led by Fathi Bashagha and supported by a parliament in the country’s east made a rival claim for Libya’s UN seat, which is currently held by the Government of National Unity in Tripoli.
On December 12, the UN credentials committee convened and unanimously agreed to “postpone its consideration of the credentials” for Myanmar, Afghanistan, and Libya “and to revert to the consideration of these credentials at a future time in the seventy-seventh session,” which will conclude in mid-September of next year.
The internationally recognized government was overthrown by the Taliban in mid-August of last year. After the credentials committee postponed its decision regarding the seat, the ambassador of the government that the Taliban toppled in Afghanistan remained the UN envoy from 1996 to 2001.
In February of last year, the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi was overthrown by the junta in Myanmar.
