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BRUSSELS: Europe has no other option than to talk to the Taliban government about returning failed asylum-seekers to Afghanistan, the EU’s migration chief said on Thursday, defending a planned Brussels meeting that critics say would renege on the bloc’s values.
The European Commission has invited Taliban officials for discussions under a push to crack down on irregular migration and boost deportations — despite it not formally recognising the Taliban administration.
“It’s no option not to talk to these people in order to improve the situation,” Magnus Brunner, the EU’s commissioner for migration, told journalists. Taliban officials were yet to be granted visas to visit Belgium and a date has not been set for the meeting but it has already caused an uproar in Brussels.
European governments shut their embassies in Kabul when the Taliban authorities returned to power in 2021 and imposed their strict interpretation of law.
