The United Nations has removed former Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani from the list of world leaders.
The list, published on the United Nations website, also removes Rula Ghani, Ghani’s wife, as Afghanistan’s “first lady.”
However, Afghanistan’s name on the list is “President of Afghanistan.”
The name of Mohammad Hanif Atmar as the Foreign Minister of the previous government of Afghanistan has also been removed from the list. However, Nasir Ahmad Fayek is still the Charge d’Affaires of Afghanistan.
This comes at a time when the status of Afghanistan’s political representation at the United Nations is being debated. The Permanent Mission of Afghanistan to the United Nations said a few days ago that Wali Naeemi had taken over as Afghanistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and had been appointed to replace Nasir Ahmad Faiq.
But Mr Fayeq later announced that he was still representing Afghanistan and carrying out the mission. He said he did not recognize Atmar as Afghanistan’s foreign minister and that his letter was not official.
Some time ago, the Taliban government introduced its representative to the United Nations, but the organization refused and left the previous government’s representative on its own.
The United Nations did not recognize the Taliban’s government during the previous Taliban regime of 1996-2001 and handed over the reins to a government led by former President Burhanuddin Rabbani.”
