The U.N. committee that approves the credentials of representatives at the world body decided Wednesday to postpone a decision on who will represent Myanmar and Afghanistan.
"I can confirm the Credentials Committee had its meeting to consider credentials of U.N. member states, including Afghanistan and Myanmar,” Swedish U.N. Ambassador Anna Karin Enestrom, who heads the nine-member committee, told reporters following members' closed-door discussions. “The committee has decided to defer its decision of the credentials in these two situations.”
She said a report that will go to the General Assembly will be made public, but she declined to say when.
Myanmar’s military junta, which seized power in a coup on February 1, wants to replace the envoy of the democratically elected government with one of its own. Afghanistan’s Taliban, who took power after the previous government collapsed, seek to do the same. For now, they will not get to name their own envoys.
Neither group has received international recognition as those countries’ formal governments, complicating the committee’s decision process.
Nine countries sit on the Credentials Committee. The current members are the Bahamas, Bhutan, Chile, China, Namibia, Russia, Sierra Leone, Sweden and the United States. The committee’s decisions are normally reached by consensus.
