The United States, NATO, and Afghanistan are all investigating a deadly air strike on a hospital in Afghanistan, making a United Nations probe unnecessary for now, officials said.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon over the weekend called for an "impartial" investigation of the October 3 incident, but his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said October 5 said the other probes should be completed first. "What we're looking for is a credible and transparent investigation."
Diplomatic sources said the United States and NATO are capable of carrying out credible investigations. Moreover, UN involvement would only be called for if the incident was a war crime involving intentional, systematic targeting of civilians.
U.S. officials, in promising a full investigation, have described the air strike that destroyed the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, killing at least 22 people, as accidental and "tragic."
The Pentagon has said that Afghan forces under Taliban fire requested the strike.
But MSF has insisted that the United States is responsible for what it described as a war crime, and is demanding a "full transparent independent investigation."