Afghanistan has too many diplomats abroad and is financially unable to sustain them, government said on Sunday.
“Currently, the number of our diplomats is very high. A country like Afghanistan doesn’t have the financial ability to have presence in every country,” presidential spokesman Sediq Sediqi said at a press conference.
He said that the number should be compared with the effectiveness of the work of diplomats.
Sediqi said that India has between 700 and 800 diplomats, but Afghanistan’s is too many.
This comes after Salahuddin Rabbani resigned as acting foreign minister, saying the ministry had been sidelined and was being treated as a non-governmental organization.
Sediqi said that the performance of foreign ministry in recent years was not satisfactory.
He said that as the enforcer of foreign policy, foreign ministry should become more active and its policy should be economy-centric.
On US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad’s visit to Kabul, Sediqi said that the envoy briefed the president about his meetings in Brussels and Moscow and discussed the issue of prisoners.
He said that Khalilzad’s mission this time was not about the process they themselves halted.
