A spokesperson for Belgium’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the country has received visa applications from five members of the Taliban administration for participation in a meeting related to migration and deportation of migrants in Brussels. These visa requests are currently undergoing security reviews. According to the spokesperson, no decision has yet been made regarding the potential issuance of the visas or the exact date of the final meeting.<\/p>\n
According to a letter obtained by Reuters addressed to Abdul Qahar Balkhi, spokesperson for the Taliban’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the meeting is scheduled to take place on June 22 and 23. The discussions will focus on the “return and readmission of Afghan migrants without residency rights in the European Union.”<\/p>\n
Last month, the European Commission invited Taliban officials to discuss mechanisms for the return of Afghan migrants. This move has drawn criticism from several human rights organizations. These organizations have warned that any formal engagement with the Taliban administration, amid widespread reports of human rights violations in Afghanistan, could be seen as a form of political legitimization of the regime and put returning migrants at risk.<\/p>\n
The European Commission and the Swedish government, the joint hosts of the meeting, have emphasized that the talks are technical in nature and do not imply recognition of the Taliban administration. The European Commission also stated that any deportations to Afghanistan will only involve individuals deemed to pose a security threat.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Belgium’s Foreign Minister, Maxime Pr\u00e9vot, has opposed inviting Taliban representatives to Brussels. A Ministry spokesperson said, “He does not agree with the decision to invite representatives of the Taliban regime to Brussels and would never accept that the Belgian government invite these individuals for talks on its behalf.”<\/p>\n
The issue of returning Afghan migrants arises against the backdrop of increased concerns about human rights conditions, extensive restrictions on women and girls, and the suppression of opponents following the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan \u2014 concerns that have made the fate of returning migrants one of the main focuses of human rights advocates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Belgium reviews visa requests from Taliban administration members for a migration meeting in Brussels amid human rights concerns and EU discussions on Afghan migrant returns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}