PARIS: The forthcoming G20 summit must send a clear message to the Taliban regarding the conditions for international recognition, said France’s President Emmanuel Macron.
In an interview with France Inter radio station broadcast on Tuesday, Macron said those conditions must include equality for women, access to foreign humanitarian operations, and non-cooperation with Daesh.
“I believe international recognition should have a price, and the dignity of Afghan women, equality between men and women, should be one of the points on which we insist, and should be a condition for us,” Macron said.
Referring to the G20 summit due to take place in Rome later this month, Macron said: “We will talk about Afghanistan.”
“We absolutely must, that is to say us, the Europeans, the Americans, China, Russia, the big powers of Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and Latin America all together, we must have a very clear message that we will set conditions for recognition of the Taliban,” he asserted.
Earlier, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi had said an extraordinary meeting of the Group of 20 major economies to discuss Afghanistan will take place on October 12.
Italy holds the rotating G20 presidency this year and Draghi had discussed Afghanistan with other world leaders — including Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping — in an effort to organise a special meeting to lay down strategies to confront the crisis.
“We have to see whether there are shared objectives among the G20 nations…we have reached a point where we only need to worry about saving lives,” Draghi had told a news conference.
The international community must also lay down a strategy to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a haven for militants, he had said.
The extraordinary G20 meeting will take place a few weeks before the summit of the leaders scheduled in Rome for October 30-31. Draghi had said Qatar, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United Nations will also participate.
