Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid speaks during a press conference in Kabul on July 03, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP
The Taliban on July 30 disavowed many Afghan diplomatic missions overseas, saying it will not honour passports, visas and other documents issued by diplomats associated with Afghanistan’s former Western-backed administration.
It’s the Taliban’s latest attempt to seize control of diplomatic missions since returning to power in 2021. Many of their leaders are under sanctions and no country recognises them as Afghanistan’s legitimate rulers.
The country’s seat at the United Nations is still held by the former government that was led by Ashraf Ghani.
In a statement posted to the social media platform X, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that documents issued by missions in London, Berlin, Belgium, Bonn, Switzerland, Austria, France, Italy, Greece, Poland, Australia, Sweden, Canada and Norway are no longer accepted and that the ministry “bears no responsibility” for those documents.
The documents affected include passports, visa stickers, deeds and endorsements.
The Ministry wrote that people in those countries will need to approach embassies and consulates controlled by the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan government instead.
“All Afghan nationals living abroad and foreigners can visit the IEA political and consular missions in other countries, other than the above-mentioned missions, to access consular services,” it said.
In March 2023, the Taliban said they were trying to take charge of more Afghan embassies abroad. Their chief spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the administration had sent diplomats to at least 14 countries.
Afghan embassies in Spain and the Netherlands last October stressed that they were working with Taliban authorities in Kabul, after the Taliban suspended consular services at the embassies in London and Vienna over their “lack of transparency and cooperation.”
Some countries retain an active diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, including Pakistan and China.
Restrictions on women and girls are a major obstacle to the Taliban gaining official recognition as the country’s legitimate government. They have stopped female education beyond grade six and banned women from many jobs and most public spaces.
In a report published Tuesday, the U.N. mission in Afghanistan said intelligence officials in May forcibly closed the office of a women-led non-governmental group for allowing some of its female employees to physically report to work.
The NGO was allowed to reopen days later after signing a letter saying it would not allow women employees to come to the office, according to the mission’s latest report on human rights in the country. The report did not disclose the location for “protection reasons.”
It also said that in southern Zabul province, officials from the Taliban’s morality police told transport companies and checkpoint commanders that women were prohibited from traveling without a male guardian.
“They warned that those that violated the order would face harsh consequences,” the report added.
Nobody from the Taliban was immediately available for comment on the mission’s report.
