File image of the South Block, which homes the Ministry of Exterior Affairs. The MEA is in a good spot over the Taliban’s appointment of a brand new ambassador in Delhi.
| Picture Credit score: V.V. Krishnan
The Taliban regime in Afghanistan’s choice to recall Afghan Ambassador Farid Mamundzay and appoint the present Commerce Counsellor Qadir Shah because the Cost D’ Affaires (Performing Ambassador) in his place has posed a troublesome choice for the federal government’s coverage on the scenario in Afghanistan and its engagement with the Taliban.
The tussle between the 2 grew to become public on Sunday, after Afghan media shops revealed a letter from Afghans based mostly in India accusing the present Ambassador and different officers of corruption.
In a response Mr. Mamundzay, who has been the Ambassador in India since 2020 and is presently in Delhi, issued a letter calling the allegations “one-sided, biased and untruthful”, and blaming the “collapse of the democratic system” in Afghanistan for the “excessive issues” that Afghans outdoors their nations face.
Nevertheless, hassle has been brewing inside the Embassy over the previous month, after the Taliban Ministry of Overseas Affairs (MFA)’s Human Sources Director issued a letter (Order No. 3578 dated April 25, 2023), recalling Ambassador Farid Mamundzay and asking him to report back to the MFA in Kabul.
One other order on the identical date by Taliban Overseas Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi stated that Commerce Counsellor Qadir Shah would “supervise affairs on the Afghanistan Embassy in Delhi, India” and report back to the federal government in Kabul. The transfer appeared to reflect what the Taliban did in China in April 2022, when the serving Ambassador resigned after the Taliban appointed one other senior diplomat serving within the Embassy in Beijing.
When contacted, Mr. Shah stated he was not affiliated to any “political celebration, group or motion”. He stated he believed that in its communication the MoFA in Kabul had wished to nominate an officer to resolve problems with “complaints in opposition to Embassy officers of corruption and non-performance of their official duties”. He reiterated that he was a diplomat assigned by the pre-Taliban “Islamic Republic of Afghanistan” and an official of the Ministry of Overseas Affairs of Afghanistan.
The MEA has up to now declined to touch upon the Taliban choice, with officers sustaining that that they had not to date acquired formal discover of the change, and indicating that that is an “inner” matter for the Embassy.
Nevertheless, larger apprehensions are over how New Delhi would react if a Taliban-approved dispensation on the Afghan Embassy in Delhi had been to behave in opposition to Afghans in India who’re underneath menace from the Taliban regime in Kabul, or had been to boost the Taliban flag on the Embassy, as they’ve Afghan Embassies in Moscow and in Beijing. Embassies in Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Iran additionally now have Taliban-approved diplomats on the helm, whereas a lot of Afghanistan’s erstwhile 60-odd embassies are going through a closure as Ambassadors have refused to pledge loyalty to Taliban and are working out of funds.
Whereas India, like all different nations doesn’t acknowledge the Taliban authorities, the federal government determined in a significant U-turn final yr to arrange a “technical mission” in Kabul. MEA officers have additionally travelled to Kabul and met with Taliban ministers, and Taliban officers have been skilled in on-line programs in MEA initiatives, however in India, the MEA continues to cope with Ambassador Mamundzay for consular and commerce points.
Nevertheless, accepting the Taliban’s need to vary the Afghan Ambassador could be seen as one step additional in the direction of formalizing its ties with the rebel group that India has accused up to now of finishing up terror assaults, together with the 2008 bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul by which an Indian diplomat and two ITBP safety pressure personnel had been killed.
