India has accepted Kabul’s request and used its month-long presidency of the UN Security Council (UNSC) to convene a meeting on the situation in Afghanistan where violence is rising amid human rights violations as the Taliban takes on the Afghan forces for control over the country after the withdrawal of US troops.

The meeting, according to India’s permanent representative to the UN, T. S. Tirumurti, has been scheduled for Friday.

Afghanistan’s foreign minister Mohammed Haneef Atmar had telephoned his Indian counterpart S. Jaishankar on Tuesday night and requested him to hold a special session of the UNSC on Afghanistan.

As per the Afghan readout of the conversation, the two talked about the escalation of violence, widespread human rights violations by the Taliban, and foreign terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan, the last being a reference to the safe havens in Pakistan.

Atmar also warned of catastrophic ramifications of the violence and the human rights violations even as another refugee crisis looms large over the world. Pakistan, which has been host to over 3 million Afghan refugees since the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the late 1970s, has said it cannot take anymore.

Asked about this meeting, external affairs ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi cited the press statement issued by the UNSC earlier this week under the presidency of Tirumurti. This, he said, “echoes much of what we have been saying’’. The statement iterated the Security Council resolution last year that there is no military solution to the conflict and declared that they do not support the restoration of the Islamic Emirate.

“The members of the Security Council recognised that a sustainable peace can be achieved only through a comprehensive and inclusive Afghan-led, Afghan-owned peace process that aims at a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire, as well as an inclusive, just and realistic political settlement to end the conflict in Afghanistan. They stressed the need for full, equal and meaningful participation of women in this regard.’’

India, meanwhile, refused to comment on Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi playing host to the Taliban in Beijing last week. Bagchi was asked a specific question on this but he side-stepped it. The Taliban leadership has visited several capitals in recent weeks and assured the hosts that their missions and investments in Afghanistan would not be targetted.