UN calls to fulfill humanitarian obligations Washington's envoy to Afghanistan resigns, and America will not participate in Moscow negotiations

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced that the US envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, resigned on Monday, while Washington announced that it would not participate in Moscow's negotiations on the Afghan crisis, amid UN calls to provide humanitarian aid to the Afghan people.

The US special envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, confirmed in statements to Al-Jazeera on Monday that he would step down from his post.

Current and former US officials told Reuters earlier that during Khalilzad's three years in this position, he became the face of one of the biggest US diplomatic failures in recent memory.

Blinken said the deputy US envoy to Afghanistan, Thomas West, will succeed Zalmay Khalilzad in his position.

Moscow negotiations

The United States announced on Monday that it would not participate in the talks on Afghanistan scheduled for Tuesday in Moscow, which will be attended by Russia, China and Pakistan.

The US State Department indicated that there are logistical problems that prevent its participation, but it considered that the forum that Russia will organize is "constructive."

"We would be happy to participate in this forum in the future, but we cannot participate this week," State Department spokesman Ned Price said.

On Friday, the Kremlin's envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, announced the four-day talks that will take place in Moscow, and said that they are aimed at "reaching a common position on the changing situation in Afghanistan."

The United States urges the international parties not to recognize the government of Afghanistan, and hopes to link this recognition to key issues, including the rights of women and girls.

Price refused to clarify the logistical problems that prevent his country from participating in the forum.

The talks come at a time when the dispute over the number of diplomats the United States is entitled to accredit in Moscow is escalating, despite the agreement of US Presidents Joe Biden and Russian Vladimir Putin at their summit in June to activate cooperation between the two countries wherever possible.

Humanitarian aid

These developments occurred while the United Nations called, on Monday, for donor countries and institutions to fulfill their pledges to help Afghanistan.

This came in a press conference held by the spokesman for the Secretary-General, Stephane Dujarric, at the United Nations Permanent Headquarters in New York.

"The urgent appeal that we have launched for Afghanistan, for 606 million dollars to help 11 million people until the end of this year, is only 45 percent funded so far," the spokesperson said.

"We still need more monetization of pledges," the UN spokesperson added.

On September 7, the United Nations launched an urgent humanitarian appeal for its activities in Afghanistan during the remaining four months of the year, with a value of $606 million.

"Our fellow humanitarians have told us that the distribution of aid is continuing, with more than 56,000 people in the east of the country receiving urgent humanitarian aid, in the past week," Dujarric said.

"This includes 54,000 food insecure people who received food rations from the World Food Programme, as well as 2,100 internally displaced people and 259 returnees," he added.

Dujarric pointed out that "approximately 39,000 people need food aid in Nangarhar, Kunar and Laghman provinces."

The UN spokesperson announced that the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) "today resumed house-to-house polio vaccination campaigns across Afghanistan, for the first time in 3 years."

Vaccination campaigns target more than 3.3 million children who were previously unable to reach the vaccination campaign, according to Dujarric.