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Brussels deportation talks
A delegation from the Afghan Taliban traveled to Brussels for closed-door talks with European Union staff expected to focus on deportations, with the meeting described as taking place in Brussels on Tuesday.
“expected to focus on deportations”
The talks were organized in response to requests from EU member states pressing for stronger cooperation on migrant returns, and the European Commission spokesperson Markus Lammert said, "They had asked the Commission to coordinate such technical contacts on returns."
Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot said Belgium would comply with EU requests to grant visas while insisting, "Making a meeting possible in the framework of our host-state policy does not amount to recognition, does not amount to legitimacy, and does not constitute an invitation by the Belgian government."
The five-member Taliban delegation included Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a New Zealand-born spokesperson for the Taliban’s foreign ministry, and members of the delegation were issued visas after security screening with limited territorial validity, giving them 24 hours in Belgium and no access to other countries in the Schengen travel zone.
Rights groups and officials
Human rights groups criticized the Brussels meeting as undermining the EU’s human rights obligations, and Human Rights Watch researcher Fereshta Abbasi said, "Any engagement with the Taliban needs to prioritize protecting human rights and accountability — not deporting people to danger there."
Eve Geddie, Director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office, said it was "unconscionable that the EU would now try and deport people to Afghanistan, which has only become more dangerous in the meantime," warning that the situation had worsened since people fled.
The European Commission spokesperson Markus Lammert said the meeting was a response to pressure from a clear majority of the 27 EU member states, with 20 signing a letter in October calling for stronger migration policies including a ramping up of deportations.
The European Commission also said the meeting would not take place on official buildings or sites belonging to either the EU or Belgium, and that the executive had declined repeated requests to provide additional information.
What’s at stake next
The meeting comes as EU governments seek to speed up and increase deportations for those whose claims are rejected or who commit crimes in their host countries, and the European Commission said the technical contacts were aimed at returns for people who have committed serious crimes and who are possibly a security threat.
“only 2% of the 22,870 Afghans told to return had done so.”
Belgian Migration Minister Anneleen Van Bossuyt said that across the EU, only 2% of the 22,870 Afghans told to return had done so, a figure that the reporting tied to pressure for a firmer and joint approach to migration and security.
The talks also sit alongside the Taliban’s restrictions on rights, including bans on education beyond primary school and on working in all but very few professions, and the reporting said these restrictions have been imposed since the Taliban seized power in 2021.
In the background of the deportation push, the reporting described Afghanistan as facing the return of about 3 million Afghans from Pakistan and Iran in the past year alone, exacerbating a humanitarian disaster already reeling from food and economic crises including biting sanctions on the Islamic Emirate.
