Nov. 3 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Government of the Czech Republic has announced that it will close its Embassy in Afghanistan on January 1, 2023 due to the lack of progress in the security situation since the Taliban took power in August 2021.
The Czech Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Radek Rubes, has indicated before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Parliament that the decision has been transferred by the head of the portfolio, Jan Lipavsky, and has added that the activities will be transferred to the Czech Embassy in the capital of Pakistan, Islamabad.
He also highlighted that Prague plans to close its Embassy in Mali and its consulate in the Chinese city of Chengdu, as reported by the Czech news agency CTK. The authorities are also considering creating a consulate in the Indian city of Bombay.
Rubes explained that the closure of the Embassy in the Malian capital, Bamako, is related to the end of the activities of the Army of the Czech Republic in the framework of the training mission of the European Union (EU) in the African country for the stresses with the board.
“This mission ends before the end of the year and the soldiers are withdrawing from Mali due to political turbulence”, he pointed out, while lamenting that Mali “is totally moving away from Europe and European values”.
The governments of France and the rest of the European countries that participate and collaborate with the ‘Barkhane’ operation and the Takuba Force, in addition to Canada, announced in February the withdrawal of their forces from Mali, where they were deployed to help Bamako in the fight against jihadism.
Tensions have been on the rise in recent months due to the announcement by the military junta to extend the transition process to between four and five years and to postpone the elections scheduled for February, amid the exchange of accusations between Paris and Bamako over anti-terrorist efforts and the deployment of mercenaries from the Wagner Group, owned by a Russian oligarch.
