New Delhi (Kubha News) – The Taliban government has once again initiated efforts to take control of the Afghan Embassy in New Delhi and the consulate in Mumbai.
Sources in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs have informed The Hindu newspaper that the Taliban government has proposed an Afghan student pursuing a doctoral degree at the South Asian University as the head of Afghanistan’s consulate in Mumbai to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.
Nasir Ahmad Faiq, the charge d’affaires of Afghanistan’s permanent mission to the United Nations, told The Hindu: “Normalization and recognition should not occur until they take tangible actions aligned with the demands of the Afghan people and the international community, focusing on the formation of an inclusive system based on the will of the people, justice, and the rule of law,”
The consular activities of Afghanistan in Mumbai currently serve around 25,000 Afghan citizens in India, but the fate of Afghanistan’s embassy and consulates in Mumbai and Hyderabad remains uncertain.
A staffer at the Afghan Embassy in Geneva told to Kubha News, that during the third annual meeting of the Coordination Council of the Diplomatic and Consular Missions of the I.R. of Afghanistan, held in Warsaw, Poland, on May 7, the ambassadors of the previous Afghan government decided to write a letter to the Indian government requesting not to hand over the Afghan Embassy in New Delhi to the Taliban.
The source also mentioned that if India agrees, a diplomat from Afghanistan’s permanent mission to the United Nations will be introduced as the head of the embassy and consulates of Afghanistan in Mumbai and Hyderabad.
Following the reopening of the Indian Embassy in Kabul in June 2022, India appointed a charge d’affaires as the head of this embassy, establishing regular communication with the Taliban government.
J.P. Singh, Secretary in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, who handles Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran, also met with officials of the Taliban government during his visit to Kabul in March this year.