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The sudden control of the Taliban has put hundreds of overseas Afghan diplomats into trouble: running out of funds to maintain mission operations, worrying about domestic families, and eager to seek refuge abroad.
The organization quickly replaced Afghanistan’s Western-backed government on August 15.
However, in countries such as Canada, Germany and Japan, eight embassy staff, who asked not to be named, told Reuters that they had encountered dysfunction and despair in performing their tasks.
“My colleagues here and in many countries are begging the host country to accept them,” said an Afghan diplomat based in Berlin, who worried about what would happen to his wife and four daughters who stayed in Kabul if his name was allowed.
“I’m really begging. The diplomat is willing to become a refugee,” he said, adding that he will have to sell everything, including a large house in Kabul, and then “start over.”
Afzal Ashraf, an international relations expert and a visiting scholar at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, said that Afghanistan’s overseas missions are facing a period of “long unresolved” as countries decide whether to recognize the Taliban.
“What can those embassies do? They do not represent the government. They have no policies to implement,” he said, adding that if they return to Afghanistan, embassy staff may be granted political asylum for security reasons.
The Taliban rigorously interpreted Sharia law during their reign from 1996 to 2001, and imposed punishments such as amputation and stoning. Since regaining power, it has been trying to show a more conciliatory face.
The spokesperson assured the Afghans that they are not seeking revenge and will respect the rights of the people, including the rights of women.
But reports of former officials and ethnic minorities being searched and retaliated from house to house have made people wary. The Taliban have promised to investigate any violations.
On Wednesday, a group of special envoys from the dismissed government issued a pioneering joint statement calling on world leaders to deny the official recognition of the Taliban.
‘No money’
The Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan, Mullah Amir Khan Mutaki, said at a press conference in Kabul on Tuesday that the Taliban had sent a message to all Afghan embassies asking them to continue their work.
“Afghanistan has invested a lot in you, and you are an asset of Afghanistan,” he said.
A senior Afghan diplomat estimates that about 3,000 people work in the country’s embassy or rely directly on the embassy.
The overthrown government of former President Ashraf Ghani also wrote to foreign missions on September 8, calling the new Taliban government “illegal” and urging the embassy to “continue its normal functions and duties”.
But embassy staff said these calls for continuity do not reflect the local chaos.
“There is no money. It is impossible to operate in this situation. I am not getting paid now,” said a source at the Afghan Embassy in Ottawa, the Canadian capital.
Two staff members of the Afghan Embassy in New Delhi said that their cash is almost running out because their mission is to provide services to thousands of Afghans who are trying to find home to reunite with their families or need help Methods of applying for asylum in other countries.
Both staff members stated that they would not return to Afghanistan because they were afraid of being targeted because of their relationship with the previous government, but it would also be difficult to obtain asylum in India, where thousands of Afghans have been seeking refugee status for years. .
One person said: “I must sit quietly in the embassy now, waiting to leave any country that is willing to accept me and my family.”
“Government in Exile”
Some Afghan envoys publicly criticized the Taliban.
The country’s ambassador to Austria, Manizha Bakhtari, frequently posts allegations of human rights violations against the Taliban on Twitter, and China’s special envoy Javid Ahmad Qaem warns against trusting the Taliban’s commitment to “extreme organizations”.
When I saw that the Taliban banned women from working and flogged women in protest on many streets, I was full of anger and thought about the fate of thousands of girls who were held at home and had no hope for the future. However, we will not give up.
-Manizha Bakhtari (@BakhtariManizha) September 15, 2021
Others are in a low position, hoping that their host country will not rush to recognize the organization and put them in danger.
Several Afghan diplomats said that they will pay close attention to the annual UN World Leaders Meeting in New York next week, when there is uncertainty about who will fill the seats in Afghanistan.
The United Nations certificate gives the government weight, and no one has officially requested a seat in Afghanistan. The diplomat said that any move deemed to legalize the Taliban could give the organization the right to replace embassy staff with its own staff.
In Tajikistan, a senior diplomat said that in recent weeks, some embassy staff have managed to bring their families to the border, and they are considering converting the embassy into a residential building to house them.
And, like their peers all over the world, they have no plans to return to their homeland when the Taliban are back in power.
“Obviously, no Afghan diplomat wants to return home,” said a senior Afghan diplomat based in Japan.
“We are all determined to stay where we are, and maybe many countries will accept us as part of the government in exile.”
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