Brussels.- The European Union will restore “a minimal presence” of its staff in Kabul, the Afghan capital, to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid in the country, without it being an endorsement of the Taliban in power, he announced Thursday in a statement.
“Our minimal presence in Kabul should not be considered in any way as an endorsementto the ruling regime, wrote Peter Stano, spokesman for EU diplomat Josep Borrell, in a statement. “This has been made clear to the authorities” of the Taliban regime, he added.
Hours earlier, the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs had mentioned through a spokesman on Twitter the reopening of an “embassy” of the European Union, with a “permanent presence in Kabul” for the first time in five months.
A European diplomat contacted by AFP in the Afghan capital qualified the government’s statements and said that it was a diplomatic presence under the name of the European Union Delegation, installed since the beginning of the week.
According to Peter Stano, “the EU has started to re-establish a minimal presence of international staff in its Delegation”.
The objective, he specified, is “to facilitate the arrival of humanitarian aid and observe the humanitarian situation.”
At the moment, no country has recognized the Taliban government. The international community is waiting to see how the Islamist fundamentalists intend to govern the country, after having trampled on human rights during their first period in power, between 1996 and 2001.
Although the Taliban claims to have modernized, women remain largely excluded from public employment and girls’ secondary schools remain largely closed.
Several countries, including Pakistan, Russia, China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, kept their embassies open in Kabul after the Taliban arrived in August, but do not recognize their government.