Lack of any visa application casts doubt on Taliban talks in Brussels

The Taliban adopted a new law legalising the marriage of girls from the age of nine (Source: © EU – photo by EC/ECHO/Pierre Prakash)

EU and the World

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By Nikolaj Nielsen,
Brussels
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The Taliban have yet to ask for Belgian visas for a possible meeting with the European Commission to discuss deportations to Afghanistan.

“We haven’t received a request for a Belgian visa, so at this moment no visas have been delivered, as we have not received a request yet,” Laurens Soenen, spokesperson for Belgian’s foreign ministry said.

The EU Commission has consistently framed the controversial planned meeting with the Afghan rulers as a “technical-level” discussion, a formulation intended to avoid any implication of formal recognition of the Taliban.

It also linked the expected talks to a proposal from 20 EU and Schengen states seeking better coordination on deportations of Afghans back to Kabul.

Speaking to EUobserver on Monday (8 June), Soenen said any such visas would take up to at least four weeks to process — raising questions on whether the Taliban will actually come to Brussels this month.

Soenen said Belgium’s minister of foreign affairs, Maxime Prévot, will not participate in any meetings with the Taliban delegation.

“And it’s highly unlikely that Belgian officials will take place in the meetings,” he also said, noting that some other EU countries may be interested in joining.

Sweden is likely among those countries, given it had sent last month, along with the commission, the invitation for the Taliban to come Brussels.

For its part, the commission on Monday declined to comment on any new developments.

Back in April, a commission spokesperson said of any discussion: “This is in particular about persons who have no right to stay in the union and who pose a security threat.”

But even that formulation appears somewhat misaligned.

Johannes Luchner, the deputy director-general of the commission’s home affairs branch, visited the Taliban in Afghanistan in January.

Luchner said that while the intent is to return criminals, he also inferred others could follow.

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The Taliban adopted a new law legalising the marriage of girls from the age of nine (Source: © EU – photo by EC/ECHO/Pierre Prakash)

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Author Bio

Nikolaj Nielsen joined EUobserver in 2012 and covers home affairs. He is originally from Denmark, but spent much of his life in France and in Belgium. He was awarded the King Baudouin Foundation grant for investigative journalism in 2010.

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