Made Significant Progress in Removing Group Officials From UN Blacklist, Claims Taliban

The Taliban’s Foreign Ministry officials said during a press conference on Thursday that the group has made significant progress in the past year in lifting sanctions and removing Taliban officials from the United Nations blacklist.

The Taliban did not specifically mention the removal of the name of any particular member of the group.

Recently, some sanctioned Taliban officials have travelled to countries including the United Arab Emirates.

According to the UN Sanctions Monitoring Team, 61 members of the Taliban are under sanctions, 35 of whom are cabinet members and senior officials of the group.

Taliban’s Foreign Ministry officials also said on Thursday that in the past year, dozens of the group's diplomats have been introduced and accepted to countries such as Malaysia, Turkiye, Pakistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, China, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

The Taliban also said that senior officials from regional countries, the European Union and the United Nations travelled to Afghanistan and met with the group's officials.

According to the Taliban, in the past year, Taliban officials have made 46 trips to different countries and participated in meetings in Qatar, Turkiye, Pakistan, and Iran.

The Taliban also said that within a year, 959 foreign citizens were issued visas for Afghanistan.

Taliban officials said that the group provides consular services in 19 political and consular missions in Afghanistan. The group also said that it had established a "single, centralised visa issuance system" in Afghanistan's 26 diplomatic and consular missions.