Global Policy Forum

By Barbara Crossette

United Nation - The relief agency Doctors Without Borders said today that it was unable to fly medicine and other relief goods into Afghanistan because of a delay by the Security Council in granting permission.

The Security Council imposed sanctions on Afghanistan's Taliban movement last month, including a prohibition on international flights. But it has not found a chairman for the committee that rules on exceptions to the flight ban.

The aid group, which was awarded the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize, appealed to the Security Council today and was promised a decision by late afternoon on whether an aircraft loaded with health supplies could fly into Kabul from Dubai, said Catherine Dumait-Harper, the organization's representative at the United Nations. Relief goods are permitted to be sent to Afghanistan once the paperwork has been cleared in New York.

But the council deferred the decision until Thursday, too late for the plane to take off under the aid group's charter contract. Ms. Dumait-Harper said she was told that one council member, the United States, asked for a delay. Washington is still considering the request, a United States official said.

The United States had requested the flight ban on Afghanistan until the Taliban turned over the Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden. Any country put under sanctions is normally expected to be allowed to import critical civilian goods, like medicine, but in the case of Afghanistan no Security Council member wanted to become chairman of the committee overseeing the restrictions, so no formal channel exists to handle requests for exemptions.

In Kabul, aid groups have also, said that relief work and the ability of Afghan citizens to keep in touch with families abroad through a postal service dependent on air mail have been affected by the flight ban. Requests for exemptions are not being dealt with while the committee waits for new Security Council members to take their seats in January, hoping one of them will become chairman.