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Taliban Berates UN Report as 'Bigoted Remarks'

Ayaz Gul

   ISLAMABAD - The Taliban rejected Tuesday an annual United Nations
   report that questioned the Islamist insurgency's intent to live up to
   the terms of a landmark agreement with the United States to help find a
   political resolution to the nearly 19-year-old war in Afghanistan.
   A harshly worded Taliban statement berated the U.N. findings as
   "baseless, intelligence-based and bigoted remarks" against the group.
   The U.N. Sanctions Monitoring Team in its report, released Monday,
   accused the Taliban of not breaking ties with al-Qaida as part of
   counterterrorism assurances in the agreement.
   The U.N. assessment, based on interviews with intelligence and security
   agencies of member states, as well as independent research groups, also
   cast doubts on the Taliban's pledges it would engage in intra-Afghan
   negotiations to reach a permanent cease-fire in the conflict-torn
   country.
   "All in all this [U.N.] report is constructed with the aim of harming
   and derailing the US-IEA agreement '¦ to keep the fire of war raging in
   our homeland," the Taliban asserted in its statement, using the acronym
   for its ousted government in Kabul.
   The group insisted it was committed to implementing its end of the
   peace deal and "will not allow anyone to use the soil of Afghanistan
   against anyone else or maintain training camps or use our soil to
   fundraise against others."

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