Taliban ask to address the UN General Assembly

Doha. The Taliban have asked to address world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly this week in New York City.
A UN committee will rule on the request but it is unlikely to happen during the current session of the body.
The Taliban also nominated their Doha-based spokesperson, Suhail Shaheen, as Afghanistan's UN ambassador.
The Taliban, Afghanistan'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 international body says.
The question now facing U.N. 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 U.S.-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.
Muttaqi said in the letter that former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani was “ousted” as of August 15, and that countries across the world “no longer recognise him as president,” and therefore Isaczai no longer represents Afghanistan, Dujarric said.