India shouldn’t retain ties with Afghanistan’s previous rulers, says IEA

India should sever all ties with the former Ashraf Ghani government and establish ties with Afghanistan based on national and mutual interests, said Suhail Shaheen, head of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) political office in Doha.

In an exclusive interview with India’s ThePrint news organization, Shaheen said India should seek to have deeper ties with the people of Afghanistan and should reopen its embassy in Kabul.

He said that the IEA was committed to providing full security to Indian diplomats.

“We have announced time and again that it is our commitment to provide security to all diplomats working in Kabul. It is our responsibility and we have proved that. There are many embassies working in Kabul and we have provided full security to them. That also includes India if they want to open their embassy”, Shaheen told ThePrint.

He also said India is welcome to complete projects in Afghanistan or initiate new ones.

However, he said India should “not have relations and base all their relations on the individual lens of those officials of the former Kabul administration who are now in western countries living along with their families.”

India shut down its embassy in Kabul in August 2021 when the IEA took over Kabul. Prior to that, India had also closed down its consulates in Mazar-i-Sharif, Kandahar, Herat, and Jalalabad.