YouSaid · the spoken record

Saad Mohseni

lines on the record
9
first
2020-09-03
most recent
2020-09-03
sittings or episodes
1
sources
un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “It is my hope and recommendation that the international community will continue to remain involved, at least until this new generation of Afghans, which it has invested so much in already, can find its feet.”

    2020-09-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/891 (2020) · source

  2. “I would like to end with the findings of a survey by the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies of 8,000 individuals across the country, which confirmed the following: 69 per cent of the population favours a republic, while only 7 per cent favours an emirate; only 10 per cent support a religious leader to head Afghanistan; 35 per cent fear that a drawdown of international troops will bring more conflict; 42 per cent favoured a continued presence of those troops; almost 70 per cent have faith in the Government; 65 per cent favour the disarming of the Taliban; and 95 per cent favour the indictment and prosecution of war criminals and human rights abusers.”

    2020-09-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/891 (2020) · source

  3. “Any compromise on progress made post-2001 will succeed only in strengthening their position as a viable Islamic emirate as opposed to incorporating them into the current system. What is certain is that the Afghans do not want to go back. We cannot have another 20 years of isolation and misery. Moreover, Afghanistan continues to remain vulnerable to regional politics. Ensuring that our neighbours play ball should be a priority for the United Nations and its members. The quiet, long-suffering majority of Afghanistan is emphatically supportive of continued international involvement.”

    2020-09-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/891 (2020) · source

  4. “With peace talks imminent, both the Taliban and the Afghan Government will remain mindful of global opinion. The international community’s positions must therefore be clear and unanimous. That is particularly important when we consider the Constitution of the Afghan Republic, which the Taliban want rewritten. This document was written in the wake of Taliban human rights abuses and designed to safeguard against future violations, with explicit protection for women and minorities. Protection of those rights must be non-negotiable. The international community still has enormous leverage in the aid it provides. Going forward, that aid should be given on a strictly conditional basis.”

    2020-09-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/891 (2020) · source

  5. “Collectively, the Council will maintain leverage as long as there is a unified international position. There needs to be a strong and consistent line on key issues. By way of example, a total ceasefire was agreed to with international troops, while a mere reduction in violence was good enough for the Afghans. This international position is not coherent, which encourages the Taliban to make further demands, thus resulting in an additional complication of the process and loss of life. One condition of the Doha Agreement with the United States is for the Taliban to distance itself from other terrorist organizations. Have they done so? How will that be monitored and adhered to in future? The world has to be careful not to embolden the Taliban through contradictory statements and arrangements.”

    2020-09-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/891 (2020) · source

  6. “With a clear majority of the country connected and plugged in, half the population residing in our major cities and an economy that has grown manifold, Afghanistan is on the upswing. Of course, there are negatives. Opportunities have been squandered by both the Afghans and the international community. Corruption is an issue at every level, and the country remains in the middle of a deadly war. And yet Afghanistan, with a median age of 18 — the youngest nation outside of sub-Saharan Africa — remains hopeful. With its population set to grow to 100 million by 2060, Afghanistan will be the world’s sixteenth most populous nation. So how can the Security Council help? The daunting task of fully reintegrating the Taliban into the Afghan Republic will require the Council’s participation.”

    2020-09-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/891 (2020) · source

  7. “Today, the country has the freest media from India to North Africa. It is not easy and it is certainly not safe, but this has ensured that our journalists have the freedom to report with integrity. My news organization, Tolo, alone has lost 11 staff, while the media family has lost 132 journalists. Overall, there have been 1,600 violent incidents against journalists and 30 news outlet attacks. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for nearly every one of those attacks. The Government may not like what we have to say, but at least we do not fear those types of reprisals. The transformation of Afghanistan despite the many hurdles and challenges has been extraordinary.”

    2020-09-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/891 (2020) · source

  8. “Students now make up one-third of the total population, and the country is better connected than ever; we have gone from no media to more than 100 television outlets and hundreds of radio stations, newspapers and online platforms. Despite limited access to electricity, 95 per cent of the population regularly watches TV, a medium that provides exposure beyond Afghanistan. There are 33 million mobile subscribers; that is up from zero in 2002. Furthermore, we have 12 million mobile data and internet subscribers — that is one-third of the population with access to the Internet. As I am in the media and news sector, I should like to highlight the vital work that the international community has done in terms of rebuilding Afghanistan’s legal infrastructure and its ongoing support of this sector.”

    2020-09-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/891 (2020) · source

  9. “The Afghanistan to which I returned in 2002 was a radically different country from the one I was forced to leave in the late 1970s. The Taliban and its predecessors did everything they could to root out Afghanistan’s charm, possibility and progress. It was no longer that proverbial Paris of Central Asia. In fact, it took only 20 years of isolation to annihilate a century of modern statehood and 1,500 years of history. But a lot has improved since 2002. Twenty years of State-building and help from the international community has halved the rate of child mortality and boosted literacy to almost 50 per cent of the population.”

    2020-09-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/891 (2020) · source