The Diplomat
The Spanish government is actively participating in the meetings that a group of fifteen countries have been holding in Doha since last October with senior officials of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to address humanitarian issues, according to government sources.
Nine European Union countries, including Spain, along with the United States, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Norway, have been meeting once a month with Afghan ministers, in different formats, to deal with issues related to aid to the population and to see how the verification mechanisms are working in relation to education and the situation of women and, specifically, girls’ access to schools.
According to sources consulted by The Diplomat, these fifteen countries are trying to act in a coordinated manner and, at all times, to avoid the contacts being interpreted as political negotiations with the Taliban regime.
On the Spanish side, the person in charge of participating in the contacts is Ricardo Losa, who was appointed ambassador in Kabul a few days before the entry of the Taliban, but was unable to take up his post. Subsequently, the government put him in charge of the Afghan Affairs Unit, which he runs from the Spanish Embassy in Doha.
According to these sources, the Spanish government has no intention at this time of maintaining bilateral contacts with the Taliban, nor of reopening its embassy in Kabul, something that several countries, including Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, have so far done.
Spain pledged to contribute some 21 million euros in humanitarian aid to a country where the situation of the population, which was not very good from an economic point of view, has worsened considerably since the arrival of the Taliban. In 2021, our country already disbursed 7 million of this 21 million, through the UNHCR and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
On the other hand, the Government is keeping the mechanism open to evacuate Afghans who have collaborated with the Armed Forces or Spanish Cooperation over the last twenty years from Afghanistan. In the first phase, which ended on 27 August, 2,206 people were evacuated from Kabul, via Doha, and on 11 and 12 October, two planes arrived in Spain from Pakistan with 244 people. Subsequently, after negotiations with the Spanish consular offices in different countries, a further 203 Afghans arrived.
