The invitation from the Indian Embassy in the UAE to the acting Afghan Ambassador and Taliban envoy Badruddin Haqqani, for the Republic Day reception is “routine”, official sources said, reacting to criticism that the Modi government is ‘normalising’ the Taliban regime, especially those responsible in the past for terror attacks on Indian missions. Badruddin Haqqani, the Charge d’Affaires at the Afghan Embassy in Abu Dhabi was formerly a member of the Haqqani network, and believed to be a close associate of its heads, Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani and his father, Jalaluddin Haqqani.
Explaining the invitation for the reception to be held at an Abu Dhabi hotel on January 26 , the sources said that the invitation had gone out as a routine practice to all diplomatic missions accredited by the UAE government, with the exception of Pakistan (with whom India’s diplomatic ties are frozen). In addition, the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi addressed the invitation to the envoy of the Embassy of the “Islamic Republic of Afghanistan”, not the Islamic Emirate, and the sources pointed out that the Afghan Embassy in UAE still flies the Republic tricolour. India too has allowed the Embassy in Delhi, that was closed down in protest by the previous Ambassador Farid Mamundzay, to be reopened by Afghan Consuls who are more engaged with the Taliban regime, but the flag on the embassy has not changed to the Taliban regime’s flag.
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