Afghanistan receives over 8,000 foreign tourists in two years
More than 8,000 foreign tourists visited Afghanistan over the past two years, local media TOLOnews reported Saturday, citing a government official.
The Afghanistan Embassy in New Delhi will continue to serve as an emergency consular office for Afghanistan’s citizens, despite the closure of the diplomatic mission in India as of today.
According to a statement released by the embassy in India, another key reason for the closure was a lack of progress in serving Afghanistan’s interests.
In August 2021, India did not recognize the Taliban government that took power in Afghanistan. India evacuated its personnel from Kabul before the US pulled out two years ago, and it no longer maintains a diplomatic presence in Afghanistan.
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The staff at the Afghanistan Embassy in New Delhi were appointed by the outgoing government of Ashraf Ghani with the approval of the Indian government.
An official said that the ambassador had quit India a few months ago, and that other Afghan diplomats had also left the country, likely to seek asylum in other countries.
India said it would follow the UN’s lead on recognizing the Taliban regime. The Afghan Embassy said it wants to “negotiate with the Government of India to protect the interests of the people of Afghanistan who live, work, study and do business in India.”
WHY IS IT CLOSING?
The Embassy has not received the necessary embassy support from the Government of the host country, which has prevented us from performing our duties efficiently, the Embassy said on its microblog.
The embassy said: We recognise that we have not been up to the standards required to serve Afghanistan’s interests due to a lack of diplomatic outreach in India and a lack of a functioning government in the country.
It also said: Due to unexpected and unfortunate events, our staffing and resources have been drastically reduced, making it more difficult to continue our operations. We have not been able to provide timely and adequate support for visa renewals for diplomats, as well as other important areas of cooperation, which has caused our team to be frustrated and prevented us from performing routine tasks efficiently.
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