Afghanistan embassy in New Delhi may shut down its operations

“This is in the context of the Ambassador being out of India for the past many months, steady departure of diplomats to third countries reportedly after receiving asylum, as well as reports of infighting amongst Embassy personnel,” the source said.

This comes months after a power struggle was underway at the Afghan embassy in Delhi as Ambassador Farid Mamundzay, appointed by the previous Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, was battling to stay on in office in defiance of the Taliban-run Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kabul.

The Taliban regime has taken control of at least 14 missions abroad where it has posted its own nominees, but Delhi is not yet one of them.

Aware of the infighting at the embassy that erupted at the end of April, the MEA has not taken sides. Sources said it had conveyed to both sides that it was an internal matter that they needed to settle by themselves.

In June this year, the Ministry of External Affairs’ official spokesperson had said in response to questions, “From our perspective, this is an internal matter of the Afghan embassy and we hope that they would resolve it internally.”

India had closed down its embassy after the Taliban took over the country, and the Ashraf Ghani government collapsed in August 2021. But, now it has a technical team to coordinate humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan.