Taliban, ex-Afghan government dispute ends with no UN speech

By EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The dispute between Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers and its former government over who should speak at the U.N.’s annual meeting of world leaders is over. Nobody is going to deliver an address. The Taliban challenged the credentials of the ambassador from Afghanistan’s former government, and asked to represent the country at the General Assembly’s high-level meeting. But the assembly committee that decides on challenges never met. So the old government’s ambassador Ghulam Isaczai was slated to speak. But a U.N. spokesperson tells The Associated Press that they were notified Saturday he “would no longer be speaking.”