Taliban appoint Ikramuddin Kamil as ‘Acting Consul’ at Mumbai mission; no official word from India yet

The Afghan media had reported on Monday that Ikramuddin Kamil was “the first such appointment made by the Taliban regime to any Afghan mission in India”. Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the Taliban’s deputy foreign minister for political affairs, also posted on X confirming Kamil’s appointment as “acting consul”.

In the wake of the Taliban takeover in 2021, India had pulled out its diplomats from the mission in Kabul, whereas Afghan diplomats manning the embassy in New Delhi left India and sought refuge/ asylum in different Western countries.

A lone former diplomat, who has continued to stay in India, has somehow kept the Afghan mission/consulates running.

However, sources said on Tuesday, “the fact remains that there is a large Afghan community based in India, which is in need of consular services”. “More staff is, therefore, required to effectively service the Afghan nationals in India,” the sources said.

On Kamil’s “appointment”, they said he is “a young Afghan student, who the MEA is familiar with, and who has studied in India for seven years while completing his doctorate from South Asia University on an MEA scholarship”. According to the sources, Kamil has “agreed to function as a diplomat in the Afghan Consulate”. “As far as his affiliation or status is concerned, for us, he is an Afghan national working for Afghans in India”.

This development comes days after the visit of an Indian delegation to Kabul wherein it met Afghanistan’s interim defence minister Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob and offered the use of Chabahar Port in Iran to business groups in Afghanistan, while also holding discussions on extending more humanitarian assistance to Kabul.

The delegation led by J P Singh, Joint Secretary of Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran division in MEA, visited Kabul on November 4-5.