MONITORING (SW) – The Afghan Embassy and two consulates in the United States will cease operations at noon March 23, Afghan diplomats say.
Officials from the U.S. State Department met Afghan diplomats to inform them about what they call an “orderly shutdown of operation” of the three Afghan missions, reported the VOA.
The move comes seven months after the fall of the former Afghan government in Kabul and several months of administrative and diplomatic wrangling in Washington.
Under the shutdown plan, the State Department’s Office of Foreign Missions will take over the protection and preservation of the embassy in Washington and the consulates in New York and Los Angeles.
The tricolor national flag of Afghanistan, which the new Taliban regime replaced with their white banner, will remain hoisted at the Afghan diplomatic buildings in the U.S., according to two Afghan diplomats.
Most of the nearly 100 Afghan diplomats who were stationed in the U.S. have already either applied for asylum in the U.S. or have moved to Canada, but there are about 25 diplomats who will have to change their immigration status in the U.S. by April 23.
U.S. officials had previously indicated that only Adela Raz could continue her core duties as Afghan ambassador to the U.S., and the assignments of the rest of the Afghan diplomatic corps would terminate, according to a January 18 letter purportedly sent to the Afghan Embassy and which an Afghan diplomat shared with VOA.
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