NEW DELHI: India said on Friday that the situation is a "internal matter" of the embassy as the Afghan embassy in Delhi struggles with a power struggle after the Taliban named a diplomat to lead the mission in lieu of the incumbent.
Arindam Bagchi, a spokeswoman for the external affairs ministry, responded to a question about the incident by saying, "From our perspective, this is an internal matter of the Afghan embassy and we hope that they would resolve it internally."
Even after the Taliban took over in August 2021, Ambassador Farid Mamundzay Mamundzay, who was appointed by the previous Ashraf Ghani administration, continued to serve as the Afghan envoy. Qadir Shah was, however, appointed by the Taliban to lead the operation in April. Since 2020, Shah has served as a trade councillor in the Afghan embassy. Shah attempted to take over the embassy as the Charge D'affaires late last month while Mamundzay was on a trip abroad, but other diplomats at the mission resisted him, persons familiar with the matter said.
Following news allegations that Shah had been chosen by the Taliban as the Charge d'affaires to run the mission in place of Mamundzay, the Afghan embassy declared on May 15 that there had been no change in the embassy's management.
"The embassy of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan categorically rejects the claims from an individual claiming to have taken charge of the mission in New Delhi at the behest of the Taliban," the embassy led by Mamundzay said in a statement.
Source said that Shah wrote a letter to the MEA requesting recognition when Mamundzay was travelling abroad. By sending a "technical team" to its embassy in Kabul in June of last year, India restored its diplomatic representation there.
After the Taliban took control, India withdrew its representatives from the embassy over worries for their safety. As per reports, the Taliban made at least 14 attempts to have the ambassador removed from the embassy over the course of the past two years and repeatedly informed New Delhi that the diplomats stationed at the Afghan embassy in India no longer serve as ambassadors for Kabul.
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