Monday 14 March 2022

Pressure: Afghan Embassy Around The World Not Receiving Funding Or Financial Assistance

Not even the country's sixty or so ambassadors, consuls or heads of diplomatic missions who were appointed by Western-backed former president Ashraf Ghani have agreed to serve the hardline Islamist group since it seized power in August last year.

The Afghan Embassy in Washington will close in the coming week

Afghan embassies around the world that have refused to recognise the new Taliban regime are struggling to stay afloat and facing increasing pressure from Kabul to accept loyalist replacements. 

The Taliban government has yet to be formally recognised by any nation, and the international community is grappling with how to deal with the country's new rulers while also helping Afghans face an economic and humanitarian crisis.

"We are in a very unfortunate ... situation, but we still have to continue to operate in these difficult circumstances," said Youssof Ghafoorzai, the ambassador to Norway. 

"The embassies still have a very important role to play in terms of trying to increase whatever humanitarian support is possible. But also (to help) discussions on the political track... to stabilise the situation." 

Aid and cash reserves, frozen by the United States and the international community after the Taliban seized control, are trickling back into the country, which has long depended almost entirely on donors. 

But Ghafoorzai and his colleagues have had no contact with the new regime, and staff have not been paid for months. 

The Afghan embassy and its consulates in the United States are being shut in the coming week. 

"The Afghan Embassy and consulates are under severe financial pressure. Their bank accounts are not available to them," a US State Department official told AFP. 

The embassy and Washington have made arrangements for an "orderly shutdown of operations in a way that would protect and preserve all diplomatic mission property in the United States until operations are able to resume," the official said. 

Across the world, Afghan ambassadors have been forced to dramatically scale down their activities, reduce energy bills and food costs, and even move into smaller premises.

They have also increased consular fees to generate revenue.

 

"The embassy is not receiving any funding or financial assistance from Kabul," Farid Mamundzay, the ambassador in New Delhi, told AFP.

 

"In the absence of the required financial support and depletion of resources, we have not been able to pay the staff salaries for months and had to downsize the strength and reduce the expenditure of the mission to the lowest."

 

It is not clear how long visas, certificates and other documents issued by the holdout embassies will be recognised -- either by the Taliban or the international community.

 

New passports issued in Kabul still refer to the country as the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, instead of the Taliban's preferred "Emirate", but officials have warned foreign journalists arriving with visas issued independently by the Dubai embassy that they may not be honoured in future.

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