UN removes 5 Taliban members from sanctions blacklist, including 2 who died

UNITED NATIONS – UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council on Friday removed five Taliban members from its sanctions blacklist, a move sought by the Afghan government to promote reconciliation.

Still, it was just half the number Afghan President Hamid Karzai was seeking.

The council committee monitoring sanctions against the Taliban and al-Qaida said all those taken off the list worked for the Taliban regime which ruled Afghanistan for five years before it was driven out in the U.S.-led invasion at the end of 2001.

The committee identified those delisted as former U.N. ambassador Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad Awrang; former deputy minister of mines and industries Abdul Salam Zaeef, who wrote "My Life with the Taliban;" Abdul Satar Paktin, who worked in the Foreign Ministry and was deputy minister of health, and two members described as "deceased," former deputy interior minister Abdul Samad Khaksar and the former governor of Bamiyan province, Muhammad Islam Mohammadi.

The sanctions committee said 135 Taliban members remain on the list and are still subject to an asset freeze and travel ban.

Earlier this month, Staffan De Mistura, the top U.N. envoy in Afghanistan, said Afghan officials submitted 10 names for delisting which were forwarded to the sanctions committee.

Karzai has been making peace overtures to Taliban members, who have long demanded removal from the sanctions list to help promote reconciliation and a political solution to the nearly nine-year Afghan war.

Last month, Afghan delegates to a national conference, or peace jirga, called on the government and its international partners to remove some Taliban members from the sanctions list.

Zaeef, the author who was also the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Kabul Friday that while he's personally happy to be off the sanctions list, more needs to be done to achieve stability in Afghanistan because people are dying every day and there is no peace.

"This is just a small step — a small step — toward peace," he said. "There are lots of obstacles. There needs to be even more names delisted."

Zaeef is believed to be a conduit between the Afghan government and Mullah Omar's Taliban.

Mujahid, the U.N. envoy under the Taliban, told the AP that he was happy to be delisted, calling it a confidence-building measure between the international community, the Afghan government and the armed opposition.

"We were deprived of our economic, political and human rights according to the sanctions. In spite of this, we have tried our best to make cooperation between the Taliban and the people and the government," said Mujahid, who also lives in Kabul.

"This is the time (for) the government of Afghanistan and the armed opposition to come together to stop all atrocities and go toward real reconciliation and real reintegration," Mujahid said. "We are working for a government of national unity"— one that represents all ethnic groups, tribes and political factions.

Last Friday, the Security Council "took note" of Karzai's program to reintegrate fighters who renounce violence, and acknowledged "the intention of the Afghan government to engage with the council and the international community in an evidence-based and transparent process of delisting."

The sanctions committee has just completed a review of all names on the list.

Austria's U.N. Ambassador Thomas Mayr-Harting, the committee's chairman, has said decisions on delisting are based on four principles: has the person convincingly renounced violence, laid down arms, broken all links with al-Qaida, and fully accepted the Afghan Constitution.

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Associated Press Writers Deb Riechmann and Amir Shah contributed to this report from Kabul, Afghanistan.

(This version CORRECTS Updates with sanctions committee official announcement, new quotes and background; corrects that 135 names remain on list, not 132. For global distribution.)