JOIN USIndia pulls staff from Kandahar after intense fighting; monitoring situation in Afghanistan
India has evacuated its officials posted at its consulate in Kandahar in south Afghanistan, as the Taliban continued its advances taking advantage of the withdrawal of troops by the United States and its NATO allies from the war-torn country.
New Delhi sent an aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft to bring back home the officials posted at the Consulate General of India in Kandahar late at night on Saturday.
The aircraft avoided the airspace of Pakistan while flying out of India and returning from Afghanistan with the officials onboard.
The Consulate General of India (CGI) in Kandahar will, however, continue to function and run as local employees. The Embassy of India in Kabul will take over the consular works of the CGI in Kandahar and issue visas to people in Kandahar, Nimroz, Zabul, Uruzgan and Helmand districts of Afghanistan.
“The Consulate General of India in Kandahar has not been closed. However, due to the intense fighting near Kandahar city, India based personnel have been brought back for the time being,” Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, said in New Delhi, adding: “I want to emphasise that this is a purely temporary measure until the situation stabilizes. The consulate continues to operate through our local staff members.”
India has not yet evacuated officials from its embassy in Kabul and consulates in Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat and Jalalabad in Afghanistan. Bagchi, however, said that the Government of India was closely monitoring the evolving security situation in Afghanistan.
“The safety and security of our personnel are paramount.”
He reiterated India’s commitment to a “peaceful, sovereign and democratic Afghanistan”.
The Taliban recently claimed that the Sunni Muslim insurgents had already occupied 85 per cent of Afghanistan.
The United States withdrew over 90 per cent of its troops from Afghanistan, leaving it to the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces to fight the resurgent Taliban.
New Delhi recently underlined that if the Taliban took over power in Kabul by violent means instead of going through a political process, it would lack legitimacy.
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