NEW DELHI, INDIA - 2023/09/29: An Afghanistan flag waves at the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in New Delhi. The Afghanistan embassy is expected to close down on the 30th September 2023, two years after the Taliban took over Kabul. The Afghanistan embassy has informed India that it is being forced to close down because of the lack of cooperation between the Taliban government and New Delhi. The decision was conveyed in an unsigned Note to the Ministry of External Affairs this week. (Photo by Naveen Sharma/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

New Delhi: Afghanistan’s embassy in India suspended operations on Sunday, more than two years after the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul following the collapse of the Western-backed government.

Most foreign nations — including India — do not officially recognise Afghanistan’s Taliban government, but acknowledge them as the de facto ruling authority.

This has left many Afghan embassies and consulates in limbo, with diplomats appointed by the former government refusing to cede control of embassy buildings and property to representatives chosen by the Taliban authorities.

“It is with profound sadness, regret, and disappointment that the Embassy of Afghanistan in New Delhi announces this decision to cease its operations,” said an embassy statement posted on the social media platform X.

It said India will take control of the embassy in a caretaker capacity.

The unsigned statement said it had been “increasingly challenging” to continue operations due to cuts in staff and resources, including a “lack of timely and sufficient support from visa renewal for diplomats”.

The closure follows reports that the ambassador and other senior diplomats had left India in recent months, with infighting among those remaining in New Delhi.

But the embassy said in its statement that it “categorically refutes any baseless claims regarding internal strife” among staff, and denied any diplomats were “using the crisis to seek asylum in a third country”.

New Delhi evacuated its entire mission from Kabul as the Taliban closed in on the Afghan capital in August 2021, but last year sent back a small team to reopen its sprawling embassy.

Most foreign nations similarly withdrew diplomatic staff at the time and have not returned, although a handful of embassies — including Pakistan, China and Russia — never closed, and still have ambassadors in Kabul. (Agencies)


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