A United Nations-led meeting held in Qatar with the Taliban on increasing engagement with Afghanistan does not translate into a recognition of their government, a UN official said on Monday.
The gathering on Sunday and Monday in Qatar's capital of Doha with envoys from some two dozen countries was the first time that representatives of the Afghan Taliban administration attended such a UN-sponsored meeting.
The Taliban were not invited to the first meeting, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said they set unacceptable conditions for attending the second one, in February, including demands that Afghan civil society members be excluded from the talks and that the Taliban be treated as the country's legitimate rulers.
Ahead of Doha, representatives of Afghan women were excluded from attending, paving the way for the Taliban to send their envoys though the organisers insisted that demands for women's rights would be raised.
I would like to emphasise that this meeting and this ..
