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Taliban to keep Afghan embassies open, movement’s UN envoy says

Afghan diplomats are allowed to continue working, Muhammad Suhail Shaheen notes

KABUL, November 25. /TASS/. The Taliban, an Afghan radical movement (banned in Russia) now in power, doesn’t seek to close current Afghan embassies, Muhammad Suhail Shaheen, the movement's envoy to the United Nations, said.

"We are not going to close down embassies. But as a government, of course we will transfer some of the diplomats from one embassy to another embassy, we will transfer them to the Foreign Ministry here," he said in an interview with TASS. "This is something normal."

He said that Afghan diplomats were allowed to continue working "but they really should work for the people of Afghanistan and its new government."

The Taliban has repeatedly called on Afghan embassies to carry on functioning as usual, even as some of the diplomatic missions said they didn’t recognize the Taliban government. The Afghan Embassy in Russia told TASS it wouldn’t comment on the Taliban interim government.

After the United States announced plans for its troop pullout from Afghanistan, the Taliban embarked on a massive offensive to take the country under its control. On August 15, Taliban fighters swept into Kabul without encountering any resistance and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. On September 6, the Taliban announced that they had gained control of Afghanistan’s entire territory, and on September 7, they announced an interim government, which hasn’t been recognized by any country yet.

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