Pakistan wants the European Union to revise its plan to step up human rights monitoring under the new Taliban leadership in Afghanistan, in part by taking into account socio-economic concerns in a country hoping to emerge from decades of war and instability.
Islamabad says “further improvements” to a resolution at the UN’s top human rights body are needed, including concrete pledges of aid for the war-wracked country without using human rights as the sole criteria. Pakistan is arguably the Taliban’s closest state interlocutor, with historic ties and ostensible influence with the religious militia.
The European bloc is leading an effort backed by more than 40 countries at the Human Rights Council to pass a resolution next week that would, among other things, name a special rapporteur on Afghanistan to help the country uphold its international commitments on human rights and offer support to advocacy groups — much of whose work has been disrupted.
The Europeans want consensus for the resolution at the Council, which counts Pakistan among its 47 member countries.
Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Asim Iftikhar said the EU draft resolution “needs further improvements”.
He also said the EU proposal “seeks to pursue (human rights) concerns in isolation from security, safety, conflict, governance, and economic dimensions.
