Luis Ayllón
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is studying the future of Ricardo Losa, who was appointed ambassador to Afghanistan on 4 August, but who has been left in an unusual situation, as he has not been able to take up his post, due to the Taliban’s entry into Kabul, according to diplomatic sources, The Diplomat has learned.
Losa should have replaced Gabriel Ferrán, whose resignation appeared in the Official State Gazette (BOE) on 4 August, but, although he was already scheduled to travel to Kabul, he did not make the trip, due to the government’s decision to evacuate the embassy staff and Afghan collaborators. The government asked Ferrán to remain in his post to help with the evacuation, despite his dismissal.
On the other hand, it was the previous Afghan government that gave Ricardo Losa the placet, and Spain, for the moment, does not recognise the Taliban regime that has been installed in Afghanistan, which means that the Embassy will be closed after the evacuation.
In other words, Losa is an ambassador without an embassy, which could lead the government to dismiss him before he has even taken up his post or to keep him in Madrid until the situation in Afghanistan is clarified, something that is not going to happen any time soon.
This is a rather exceptional situation and one that is very rare, so there is no clear answer as to what decision to take.
In this situation, one of the options could be for Ricardo Losa to be put in charge of a new embassy. Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares, who has halted some of the appointments decided by his predecessor, Arancha González Laya, nevertheless intends to offer an embassy to all those diplomats who were announced to be ambassadors, even if it is not the same one they were told.
The Afghanistan mission was to be the first head of mission for Ricardo Losa, who in recent years was deputy director general for the Pacific, Southeast Asia and the Philippines.
