How the Taliban’s fight for global recognition is playing out in power struggle over Delhi embassy
No nation in the world has formally recognised the Taliban’s rule of Afghanistan since the Islamist group stormed Kabul and seized control of the country by force in August 2021.
At the centre of the group’s efforts to force global recognition are hostile takeovers of Afghan embassies around the world, each one with the quiet complicity of the host nation. This pattern has played out in China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan and a number of central Asian states – and the Taliban had hoped that key regional power India would be next.
The current Afghan ambassador in New Delhi was appointed in 2020 by the Western-backed Ashraf Ghani administration. Like other Ghani-appointees still occupying diplomatic compounds around the world, Farid Mamundzay has been cut off from essential funding lines from Kabul but insisted he would continue to represent the true democratic spirit of the Afghan people – and await the Taliban’s downfall.
