KABUL, 23 September 2021, (TON): Security sources and witnesses said “two Taliban fighters and a civilian were killed by gunmen who attacked a checkpoint in eastern Afghanistan.”

The attack in Jalalabad city is the latest on Taliban targets in Nangarhar province, which for years was the main operating base of the Islamic State group's Afghanistan chapter.

A security source and witnesses said unidentified gunmen in a rickshaw attacked a checkpoint in Ghawchak district of Jalalabad and killed two Taliban guards and a civilian bystander.

A Taliban official confirmed the attack, but said the dead were all civilians.

In another incident, local residents told AFP that two Taliban fighters were injured while trying to defuse an improvised explosive device in Jalalabad.

Further details were not immediately available.

Islamic State-Khorasan, the local branch of the terrorist group, claimed responsibility for several weekend attacks in Jalalabad that killed at least two people.

AMMAN, 23 September 2021, (TON): A global partnership is critical to the efforts to resolve the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis, Jordan’s King Abdullah II told his fellow world leaders.

In a prerecorded message on the second day of the high-level Annual General Debate at the 76th session of the UN General Assembly, he said the recent war on Gaza was a reminder that the status quo in the Palestinian territories is untenable.

He also highlighted the critical role of the UN’s Refugees and Works Agency in providing life-saving assistance to 5.7 million Palestinian refugees suffering as a result of what he described as “one of the longest-standing conflicts in modern history.”

The king asked “how many more homes will be lost? How many more children die before the world wakes up?”

He added that the key to “genuine security” for both sides is a two-state solution that leads to the establishment of an “independent, sovereign and viable Palestinian state” where Palestinians can live “side-by-side with Israel in peace and security,” based on 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital.

“Jerusalem is at the heart of this peace,” said King Abdullah. “Billions of people around the world hold this holy city dear.

He called on the global community to work together to develop a “well-planned, well-executed international response.”

TUNIS, 23 September 2021, (TON): Tunisia sends 120 troops to reinforce United Nations peacekeepers in the Central African Republic (CAR) to reinforce its helicopter unit. The deployment is part of a UN Security Council resolution in March to beef up the MINUSCA force in the CAR by around 3,000 men.

Paulo Maia Pereira, general and MINUSCA's deputy commander said "we are very happy to welcome the Tunisian contingent of the Tunisian air force, here to strengthen the force's capacities to better help the Central African people, to protect civilians and to provide the necessary security to this country."

The troops will take part in air rescue operations, medical evacuation and transportation of personalities, according to a statement It is the first time a Tunisian contingent is deployed in the country.

BRUSSELS, 23 September 2021, (TON): High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell met in the margins of the General Assembly of the United Nations (UNGA) with Foreign Minister of Iran Hussein Amir-Abdollahian. They followed-up on their first phone conversation on 31 August.

The discussion focused on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The High Representative stressed the need for full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to resolve outstanding issues and reiterated his concern about the overall trajectory of the Iranian nuclear programme.

High Representative Borrell, as the Coordinator of the JCPOA Joint Commission, underlined once again the great importance of a quick resumption of the Vienna talks to bring the JCPOA back to full implementation. The Iranian Foreign Minister assured of the willingness to resume negotiations at an early date.

Finally, High Representative Borrell and Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian discussed EU-Iran bilateral cooperation, including on climate change, trade, security and migration and touched upon human rights issues.

WASHINGTON, 23 September 2021, (TON): the Russian Defense Ministry stated that Russian Armed Forces’ Chief of the General Staff, First Deputy Defense Minister Valery Gerasimov and Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Mark Milley discussed some issues of mutual interest, in particular, mitigating the risk of incidents during military activities at a meeting in Finland.

During the meeting, the top brass addressed issues of mutual interest, including reducing the risk of incidents during military activities.

The meeting was constructive,” the ministry noted.

According to the defense ministry, the meeting took place today at the Finnish government’s Koningstedt residence in Vienna.

Milley declined to provide details of the meeting to reporters traveling with him to Helsinki. In a statement, Col. Dave Butler, Milley’s spokesman, said “the meeting was a continuation of talks aimed at improving military leadership communication between the two nations for the purposes of risk reduction and operational de-confliction.”

KABUL, 23 September 2021, (TON): Head of the World Health Organization met with the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan to explore ways and means to support the country grappling with frozen funds and mounting humanitarian needs.

After landing in Kabul a day earlier, WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus Tuesday met with the Taliban’s acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Mutaqi to discuss the humanitarian situation in the country.

“Delays in humanitarian aid and the creation of ‘similar barriers’ undermine the status and reputation of the international community,” the acting foreign minister told the WHO chief, according to the group’s spokesman Ahmadullah Mutaqi.

The acting minister added “Sanctions and pressures show that international humanitarian aid is in the hands of the ‘powerful few.”

Tedros also met with the Taliban’s head of cabinet ministers, Mohammad Hassan Akhund, and his deputies Monday to get an overview of the situation in the country.

According to the state-run Bakhtar news agency, Tedros said “the World Health Organization was working to increase its assistance to Afghanistan to prevent a humanitarian “catastrophe”.

“The previous administration was corrupt, but the international community was helping it extensively. Now that the Islamic Emirate system is in place and free from corruption, the international community needs to provide more assistance,” Akhund told the WHO chief, according to Bakhtar.

ISLAMABAD, 23 September 2021, (TON): According to a PAF spokesperson “a small trainer aircraft of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) crashed near Mardan during a routine training mission.”

It was not clear whether any casualty occurred in the incident.

The spokesperson said "a board of Inquiry has been ordered to investigate the cause of the accident.”

In a similar incident in August, a PAF fighter trainer aircraft had crashed near Attock during a routine training mission, however, no loss of life or property was reported on the ground.

At least five similar incidents were reported last year, with four PAF jets crashing during training missions and one while rehearsing for the March 23 parade.

NEW YORK, 23 September 2021, (TON): Who should represent Afghanistan at the United Nations this month? It’s a complex question with plenty of political implications.

The international body says “the Taliban, the country’s new rulers for a matter of weeks, are challenging the credentials of their country’s former UN ambassador and want to speak at the General Assembly’s high-level meeting of world leaders this week.”

The question now facing UN officials comes just over a month after the Taliban, ejected from Afghanistan by the United States and its allies after 9/11, swept back into power as US forces prepared to withdraw from the country at the end of August.

The Taliban stunned the world by taking territory with surprising speed and little resistance from the US-trained Afghan military. The Western-backed government collapsed on Aug 15.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said “Secretary-General Antonio Guterres received a communication on September 15 from the currently accredited Afghan Ambassador, Ghulam Isaczai, with the list of Afghanistan’s delegation for the assembly’s 76th annual session.”

Five days later, Guterres received another communication with the letterhead “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” signed by Ameer Khan Muttaqi as Minister of Foreign Affairs requesting to participate in the UN gathering of world leaders.

TEHRAN, 23 September 2021, (TON):  Iran’s new ultraconservative president voiced support for renewed nuclear negotiations in his international debut even as he hailed what he termed the decline of US hegemony.

President Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline cleric who succeeded a government that sought better relations with the West, called on the United States to fulfill its promises to end sanctions under the 2015 nuclear accord.

Raisi said in a recorded speech to the UN General Assembly “the Islamic Republic considers useful talks whose ultimate outcome is the lifting of all oppressive sanctions.”

Raisi said “he repeated the clerical state’s stance that nuclear weapons are religiously prohibited, a position that has been met with skepticism notably by Israel, which has carried out a sabotage campaign to delay Iran’s nuclear work. Nuclear weapons “have no place in our defense doctrine and deterrence policy.”

President Joe Biden, appearing in person in his own maiden UN speech, earlier said that the United States was ready to return to the nuclear accord from which his predecessor Donald Trump bolted.

BRUSSELS, 23 September 2021, (TON): European ministers rallied around France on Tuesday over the US and Australian decision to strip Paris of a submarine supply contract, as the dispute threatened to delay trade talks with Washington and Canberra.

German Europe Minister Michael Roth said “France’s diplomatic crisis with the US was a wake-up call for all of us on the importance of uniting an often divided EU on foreign and security policy.”

Europe broke its silence and backed a furious France, which has accused the United States, Australia and Britain of working behind its back to negotiate their AUKUS defence pact and replace Canberra’s multi-billion-dollar order of French submarines with a US contract.

The show of solidarity from Germany and the EU’s top officials was welcomed by France, which said the breakdown of trust with Washington strengthened the case for Europe to set its own strategic course.

France’s minister for European affairs Clement Beaune called the row “a European issue” not simply a French one, as arrived at ministerial talks in Brussels, with the chaotic US pullout from Afghanistan in August also a source of irritation among EU members.

He said “I don’t think France is overreacting and I don’t think France should overreact. But when a situation is serious, I think it’s also our responsibility to state it very clearly.”

The European Commission said it was considering whether the diplomatic storm would affect a gathering of a new EU-US Trade and Technology Council in Pittsburgh on Sept 29 to discuss ways to cooperate on trade and regulate big tech.

“We are analysing the impact that the AUKUS announcement would have on this date,” European Commission spokesman Eric Mamer said.