"UNITED NATIONS ASSISTANCE MISSION IN AFGHANISTAN - UNAMA"

Unanimously adopting resolution 2596 (2021), Security Council extends United Nations Mission in Afghanistan for six months, as Taliban establishes rule across country.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres briefs reporters ahead of the start of the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly and presents his Common Agenda Report.

Security Council stresses need for strategic planning in reconfiguration of peace operations, unanimously adopting resolution 2594 (2021). Millions of lives will depend on how Afghanistan’s new interim government chooses to govern, Special Representative tells Security Council.

Briefing from the ground in Kabul, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Afghanistan Ramiz Alakbarov today said the humanitarian situation in the country “continues to be extremely tense” as “more than half of the Afghan children do not know whether they will have a meal tonight or not.” UNIFEED

Press Conference by Geraldine Byrne Nason, Permanent Representative of Ireland and Security Council President, on the programme of work for September.

Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told journalists in New York that “while the armies have left, the UN is committed to staying” in Afghanistan. UNIFEED

Barbara Woodward, Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom, addresses the media following the Security Council consultations.

“The UN has been working for the people of Afghanistan for decades,” the UN Mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, said on Friday and its staff “will remain and do everything for the people of Afghanistan who have suffered so much.” UNIFEED

Pakistan’s Ambassador Munir Akram said the “ideal” time to end the Afghan conflict through negotiations “might have been when the US and NATO troops were at their maximum military strength.” He added that “a continuation of foreign military presence for a longer duration now, would not have yielded any positive outcome.” UNIFEED

Secretary-General António Guterres is “following with deep concern” the latest developments in Afghanistan, including the fighting in Herat and Kandahar, and expressed hope that the discussions this week in Doha “will restore the pathway to a negotiated settlement to the conflict,” his spokesperson said. UNIFEED