Afghanistan’s embassy in India suspends operations
- Most foreign nations – including India – do not officially recognise Afghanistan’s Taliban government, but acknowledge them as the de facto ruling authority
- The Taliban authorities have full control of around a dozen Afghan embassies abroad, including in China, Pakistan, Turkey and Iran
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.
“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, formerly Twitter.
India will take control of the embassy in a caretaker capacity, it said.
The unsigned statement said it had been “increasingly challenging” to continue operations owing 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”.
