A UN Security Council delegation will pay a visit later this month to Afghanistan, where Western and government forces are struggling to subdue Taliban insurgents, diplomats said today.
Ambassadors or senior envoys from the 15 council members will be in Afghanistan from November 22 to 28th, they said. The mission, led by Italian Ambassador Giulio Terzi, aims to show Security Council commitment to the violence-torn country, but details of its program remained to be worked out.
Violence has reached record levels in Afghanistan, with about 4,000 people killed this year, as the hard-line Islamist Taliban step up their campaign to overthrow the Western-backed government.
There are some 65,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, most of them within the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, but including about 13,000 separate US troops.
In March, the United Nations appointed a new special envoy to Afghanistan, Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide, in the hope that he would take more responsibility than his predecessor in coordinating international civilian and military activities.
Reuters