Taliban disavows Afghan missions abroad and says it will not honour passports

The Taliban has disavowed many Afghan diplomatic missions overseas, saying it will not honour passports, visas and other documents issued by diplomats associated with Afghanistan’s former Western-backed administration.

It is the Taliban’s latest attempt to seize control over diplomatic missions.

In a statement posted to the social media platform X, the ministry of foreign affairs said that documents issued by missions in London, Berlin, Belgium, Bonn, Switzerland, Austria, France, Italy, Greece, Poland, Australia, Sweden, Canada and Norway are no longer valid and that the ministry “bears no responsibility” for those documents.

The documents affected include passports, visa stickers, deeds and endorsements.

The ministry wrote that people in those countries will need to approach embassies and consulates controlled by the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan government instead.

“All Afghan nationals living abroad and foreigners can visit the IEA political and consular missions in other countries, other than the above-mentioned missions, to access consular services,” it said.

In March 2023, the Taliban said they were trying to take charge of more Afghan embassies abroad. Their chief spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the administration had sent diplomats to at least 14 countries.

Afghan embassies in Spain and the Netherlands last October stressed that they were working with Taliban authorities in Kabul, after the Taliban suspended consular services at the embassies in London and Vienna over their “lack of transparency and co-operation”.

Some countries retain an active diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, including Pakistan and China.

Restrictions on women and girls are a major obstacle to the Taliban gaining official recognition as the country’s legitimate government. They have stopped female education beyond grade six and banned women from many jobs and most public spaces.

In a report published on Tuesday, the UN mission in Afghanistan said intelligence officials in May forcibly closed the office of a women-led non-governmental group for allowing some of its female employees to physically report to work.