The United Nations has removed former president Ashraf Ghani’s name from its list of Heads of State. The list was released on the UN website on Febru-ary 15. The name of Mohammad Hanif Atmar, the former foreign minister, also has been removed from the list of Ministers for Foreign Affairs.
Naseer Ahmad Faiq, however, has been named as Chargé affairs of Afghanistan on the list of perma-nent representatives of states to the UN.
Afghanistan’s seat at the UN became a contested issue after the resignation of the former ambassador and permanent representative of Afghanistan to the UN Ghulam Mohammad Ishaczai.
After Ishaczai’s resignation, Faiq was appointed as the Chargé d’affaires. However, later Afghanistan’s permanent mission to the UN issued a statement saying that Mohammad Wali Naeemi, deputy repre-sentative of the mission, has become Chargé d’af-faires of the mission instead of Faiq.
Mohammad Haneef Atmar, calling himself the “for-eign minister of the republic government,” report-edly had written a letter to the United Nations Sec-retary-General Antonio Guterres, saying Naeemi will assume the leadership of the permanent mission as a Chargé d’affaires of Afghanistan.
According to the letter, when Isaczai resigned, based on principle, Naeemi would have assumed the responsibility but since he was ill, Faiq was ap-pointed as the Chargé d’affaires.
The statement said that as Naeemi was recovered, he has become the Chargé d’affaires of the perma-nent mission and Faiq will continue working in the mission in his previous role.
“Considering that Naeemi as the deputy representa-tive has recovered, and based on the UN’s standards that after the ambassador and the permanent repre-sentative his deputy will take over responsibilities, Naeemi has taken the responsibilities as Chargé d’affaires from 4th February 2022,” reads the state-ment.
In the statement, Mohammad Haneef Atmar called himself the “foreign minister of Afghanistan.”
Talking to TOLOnews on Tuesday, Faiq said At-mar’s letter to the UN was not accepted and Ghani’s and Atmar’s name have been removed from the UN system.
“Atmar’s letter and his attempt to introduce a new acting head of mission led the UN departments, including legal and political sections, to assess the letter. Then, it was decided that the former govern-ment was not official after its collapse on August 15 and that the letter was not considered. This also led to the removal of their names from the UN system,” Faiq said.
Ashraf Ghani and Hanif Atmar have yet to comment on the UN’s recent move.— TOLOnews
