New Delhi: The Afghan Embassy in India suspended operations on Sunday, October 1, 2023. The suspension comes more than two years after the Taliban group returned to power in Afghanistan following the collapse of the Western-backed government.
Most foreign countries – including India – do not officially recognize the Afghan government under the Taliban, only recognizing them as the de facto authority.
These conditions left many Afghan embassies and consulates in limbo, with government-appointed diplomats previously refusing to hand over control of embassy buildings and property to hand-picked representatives of the Taliban authorities .
“It is with sadness, regret and deep disappointment that the Afghan Embassy in New Delhi announces the decision to suspend its operations,” said an embassy statement posted on social media platform X.
Quoting from the AFP page , Sunday, October 1 2023, India will take control of the embassy in a temporary maintenance capacity.
The Taliban is in power in Afghanistan
The embassy’s unsigned statement said it was “increasingly difficult” to continue operations in India due to reductions in staff and resources, including “a lack of timely and adequate support from visa extensions for diplomats.”
The closure follows reports that the ambassador and other senior Afghan diplomats have left India in recent months, and infighting among those remaining in New Delhi.
But the embassy said in a statement that it “firmly refutes unfounded claims of internal strife” among staff, and denied any diplomats were “using this crisis to seek asylum in third countries.”
New Delhi evacuated its entire mission from Kabul as the Taliban approached the Afghan capital in August 2021. But last year, India sent back a small team to open its embassy.
Most foreign countries also withdrew their diplomatic staff at that time and have not returned to date, although some embassies – including Pakistan, China and Russia – never closed, and still have ambassadors in Kabul.
Source : Medcom.id