Strasbourg, 09/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - By adopting, during its emergency debates, a joint resolution from five groups and MEPs from the Bonino list, The European Parliament expressed its concern for the recent offensives by the Talibans in Afghanistan that started on 5 September with the fall of the city of Taloqan, and invited the EU Council to maintain the restrictive measures adopted towards Kabul as long as the Taliban regime continues its unacceptable policy of discrimination against women. The Parliament, which wants the EU Council and the Commission to present in plenary the Union's position with regards to Afghanistan, calls on the EU to take humanitarian emergency measures (in particular in the regions controlled by the Northern Alliance) and to provide special aid to eliminate antipersonnel mines buried in Afghanistan (the resolution reminds that according to the UN one million Afghans have been mutilated by land mines). The EU Member States should also, according to the Parliament, use their influence with neighbouring countries to Afghanistan, and in particular Pakistan, so that they may stop all interference in Afghan affairs, and the Council should work towards a political solution in Afghanistan, coordinate its initiatives, in particular, with Russia and Iran. Finally, the Parliament, which is in favour of diplomatic isolation of the Taliban regime, calls on the UN Security Council to decide over an embargo on arms exports to Afghanistan.
Olivier Dupuis, member of the Bonino list, welcomed the holding of the debate, wanted by General Morillon, by noting that in Europe we do not pay enough attention to the situation in Afghanistan: to try find a solution in this country, we must, he said, put pressure on the "large neighbour, Pakistan, but also on the other neighbour, China". As for Philippe Morillon (EPP, France), he denounced the "ostrich policy" practised by those who place on the same footing the Talibans and Commander Massoud, who, he said, has an image of war lord, but who may be a man of peace: those who know him know that he is a man of dialogue, who could be the "champion of tolerant Islam and who recognises that there cannot be a military solution to the problem of Afghanistan (and he is right, added General Morillon). Several MEPs recalled the exponential growth of drug production in Afghanistan and, obviously, the oppression of women (the EU must give them the right to asylum, said Mrs Ainardi, French MEPs from the United Left, and the German Green Mrs Schroedter also raised this problem). As for Mrs Paciotti (Democratici di sinistra), she stated, over the blocking of credits allocated for 2000 in the EU budget on mine clearance aid: Fellow civil servants, lift your heads from your dossiers, know that the lives of thousands of children are threatened. I promise you that I will do everything for these difficulties to be lifted as rapidly as possible, replied Commissioner Gunter Verheugen, Mrs Ganzalez Alvarez, Spanish MEP of the United Left, noted, when alluding to the United States (which she did not cite): it is not "politically correct" to recall those that, from the start, had politically supported the Tabilan… Mr Belder (Dutch, Europe of democracies and diversities) posed the problem of refugees, and Mr Verheugen recalled the speeches by the EU in their favour, in particular by ECHO, as well as the aid already provided to the victims of drought: they, he said, will soon receive a further aid of EUR 3 million.