Iran Hands Over Afghan Embassy in Tehran to Taliban

A Taliban fighter is seen at the Taliban flag-raising ceremony in Kabul, Afghanistan, on March 31, 2022. [File, Standard]

Iran has handed the Afghan embassy in Tehran over to the Taliban, becoming the latest country to accept Taliban-appointed diplomats without recognizing their 18-month-old government in Kabul.

The Taliban foreign ministry said Monday that it had dispatched a seven-member team of "experienced diplomats, led by a newly appointed charge d'affaires" to the Iranian capital to formally assume the charge of Afghanistan's diplomatic mission there.

The statement described the development as an "important and cooperative step" in bilateral relations between Afghanistan and Iran.

"We believe that with the new appointments, we would witness transparency in the affairs of the embassy as well as expanded relations in various fields between the two Muslim and brotherly countries," Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said.

Iran joins several neighboring and regional countries to have allowed the Taliban to appoint staff to and manage Afghan diplomatic missions in their respective territories. They include Pakistan, China, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Russia, Turkey, Qatar, Malaysia, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, Balkhi claimed in written comments to VOA.

He said his ministry had already introduced new diplomats to missions in these countries. Balkhi, identified Tajikistan as the only neighbor of Afghanistan where they have not appointed new diplomats, saying the head of the embassy there "is not cooperative."