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10th Herat Security Dialogue in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. | Photo credit: Suhasini Haider
Days after US and European Union representatives met with former Afghan leaders at an anti-Taliban conference in Dushanbe, two senior Western diplomats will travel to Delhi this week to meet and brief Indian officials in Afghanistan. On Monday, the US special representative for Afghanistan, Thomas West, is expected to meet with senior State Department officials, including the point person on Afghanistan and Pakistan, JP Singh, and the deputy national security adviser, Vikram Misri, during the stopover. In Delhi. Mr. West, who met with counterparts in Tokyo on Friday, will travel to Abu Dhabi after his meetings in India, where he will meet with officials and Afghans in exile. On Thursday, the UK Prime Minister’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Nigel Casey, will also meet with officials.
“Special Representative West will consult with partners and Afghans on the humanitarian and economic crisis in Afghanistan, the protection of Afghan rights and shared security concerns,” the US State Department announced last week, adding that Mr. West would join. with “How to address these challenges including the Afghan diaspora, human rights, business, political and media leaders”.
A large number of former Afghan officials, including former president Ashraf Ghani, currently reside in Abu Dhabi, after he fled last August. Last week, more than 100 former officials and Afghan leaders, many of whom fled Afghanistan after the Taliban took over Kabul in August 2021, met for the first time at the ‘Herat Security Dialogue’ in Tajikistan, along with the European Union’s special representative. , Tomas Niklasson, and the US charge d’affaires for the embassy in Afghanistan that has moved to Doha, Karen Decker.
Meanwhile, in an unprecedented move, the Taliban regime finally allowed former president Hamid Karzai, one of the few Afghan leaders who decided to stay in Kabul after the fall of the Ghani government, to leave the country for the first time. Mr. Karzai, who had earlier planned to visit India in June, and had been invited to other countries, was prevented from leaving by the Taliban regime. On Saturday, his former finance minister, Omar Zakhiwal, announced that they had both left Kabul, posting a picture on social media, adding that they would both return to Afghanistan “soon”.
Mr Karzai is expected to travel to Germany via the UAE, and will also visit other European countries on his first trip, where he will undergo health checks, meet his son, who attends school in Germany, and meet with both Western officials. And members of the Afghan diaspora there.
“After months of being under real House arrest, it is significant [former] Former Afghan Foreign Minister Rangi Dafdar Spanta said that President Karzai will travel to Europe. Hindu. “The visit of an integrated person like the former president… will bring hope to the people of Afghanistan at this time,” he added.
The envoys’ visits to Delhi and Mr. Karzai’s trip abroad come as the US and the European Union are believed to be stepping up efforts to push the Taliban’s “interim government” toward negotiations for a more inclusive government in Kabul. However, the Taliban has so far shown no inclination to follow through on promises made in the Doha agreement and to Western officials, that it would accept power-sharing with other leaders, allow secondary education for girls or lift new decrees restricting women’s employment and movement. in the country. Of particular concern is the serious “downslide” in the human rights situation in Afghanistan, including the public flogging of 14 men and women by the Taliban in Logar province, reminiscent of Taliban atrocities during its previous rule of 1996-2001.
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