Pakistan committed to implementation of anti-Taliban UN sanctions despite reservations
Frontier Post

ISLAMABAD, Aug 17 (APP): Pakistan Thursday said it is committed to the implementation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions on Afghanistan inspite of its well-known reservations on these resolutions. "Notwithstanding its reservations, Pakistan is consistent with its own foreign policy and the obligations under the international norms and charter," Foreign Office spokesman Riaz Muhammad Khan said in response to a question at a press briefing. The spokesman said, "Pakistan is committed to the implementation of these resolutions." Under article 48 of the UN charter, he explained, the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council under chapter 7 were of mandatory nature and "member states are obliged to implement these resolutions." He said the UN Security Council resolutions imposing curbs on Afghanistan's Taliban government fell under chapter 7. According to the resolutions, he said, the Security Council decided the deployment of 20 monitors - 5 at the UN headquarters in New York and 15 in the countries bordering Afghanistan - to observe the implementation of these curbs. The mandate for the deployment of these monitors, he said, flew from the UN resolutions. "But functions and modalities for their operations and positions have yet to be decided by the Security Council." "But I may add here while we have well known reservations relating to these resolutions, we have shared the concern expressed by the UN agencies and other humanitarian groups that these sanctions would aggravate the humanitarian situation there and this fear has turned out to be true." "We also felt that one-sided and unilateral sanctions are imposed against Taliban government while Northern Alliance is free to receive military equipment and help which will only fuel the fire of conflict."