UN blocks Afghan safety flights

The Ariana fleet is in effect grounded

By Kate Clarke in Kabul

The United Nations has refused to allow the national Afghan airline, Ariana, to fly two of its planes to Pakistan for safety checks.

Under UN sanctions against the Taleban, aimed at forcing the handover of the Saudi militant, Osama bin Laden, Ariana is banned from making international flights.

Recent accident record

March 1998: 45 killed in Boeing-727 crash

Jan 1998: 80 killed after Russian-built Antonov gets lost in fog

August 1997: Prime Minister Abdul Rahim Ghaforzai killed in crash

But it is still flying Afghans on domestic routes.

The refusal to allow the check, which is required under international aviation law, has raised concerns for the safety of those Afghan passengers.

In effect, the sanctions committee is preventing Ariana from operating a safe service.

Contrary decisions

It is not the committee's first strange decision. Last month it refused to allow three senior officials from the Civil Aviation Ministry to fly to Pakistan for a meeting on airport security, even though the meeting was hosted by the UN, and international civil aviation officials had flown in especially from Canada and Geneva.

The committee also recently released a document listing Taleban officials whose bank accounts should be frozen under the sanctions regime. The list included people who were dead, dismissed, or in Taleban jails.

Afghan frustration

Communication between Taleban officials and the sanctions committee is expected to get worse following America's decision to close the Taleban office in New York.

At present, all requests for exemption from sanctions are routed through that office.

In a country without even a functioning telephone network, just contacting the committee in New York will become difficult.

Airline staff are visibly frustrated, saying the UN appears intent on hampering their work at every turn.

Ariana is a civilian airline, and it is practically the only national institution in Afghanistan to have survived the 20-year-old war.