Belgian authorities issued five visas to the Taliban Monday (22 June) in order to meet with European Commission counterparts eager to deport Afghan nationals.
The visas were confirmed to EUobserver by Audrey Jacquiez, a spokesperson for Belgium’s deputy prime minister.
“The five requested visas were granted late Monday afternoon after a security assessment,” she said. The visas will be valid for one day only and limited to Belgium only.
Belgium’s State Security Service approved the applications after determining that the Taliban delegation did not pose a threat.
“It was deemed preferable not to disclose the date of their arrival for reasons of security and public order,” she added.
Jacquiez had earlier the same day told EUobserver that the five visas were requested last week would be valid for an “extremely short” time. Asked if this meant several days, she said “not even”.
“The visa application has been submitted. It hasn’t been granted yet, but it’s imminent,” she added, in a follow up call. Those visa are now granted.
The commission has been courting the Taliban for months, dispatching the deputy head of its home affairs department, Johannes Luchner, to Kabul in January.
Luchner said that while the intent is to return criminals, he also inferred that others could follow.
“Our first interest is the return of criminals, but we also have an increasing number of non-criminal Afghans with a return order,” he told European lawmakers in late January.
Luchner told MEPs he had travelled to the country earlier that same month.
But in a sign of the political sensitivities over the issue, his boss Beate Gminder has since told EUobserver, in a document access request, that the commission has no records of Luchner ever meeting the Taliban or even going to Afghanistan.
Nikolaj Nielsen