India-Afghan talks: Muttaqi faces flak over women journalist ‘ban’ at press meet

New Delhi: Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi held a restrictive press conference in the Afghan Embassy premises in New Delhi on Friday, while no women journalists were allowed, who were informally invited to a press interaction.

The banning of the women journalists led to a massive backlash on social media.

Muttaqi arrived in the capital on Thursday and held talks with EAM Jaishankar, where they held discussions on India’s support for Afghanistan’s development, bilateral trade, territorial integrity and people-to-people ties and capacity-building, besides several other issues.

However, the press conference by Muttaqi held later at 3.30 PM at the Afghan Embassy was not open to a wider media fraternity, and excluded women journalists too.

Despite being a significant diplomatic engagement- especially given India’s cautious stand on the Taliban, wherein EAM Jaishankar announced India’s upgradation of the Technical Mission in Kabul to the status of Embassy, most journalists were neither notified nor given access.

The Afghan Embassy in Delhi continues to be run by Charge d’Affaires Mohammad Ibrahimkhail from the erstwhile Ashraf Ghani administration, while consulates in Mumbai and Hyderabad are already under Taliban control.

Journalists who did not wish to be named and attended this press interaction told IANS that they were informed about this press conference only in the morning.

Similarly, questions have also emerged over the restrictive media access given to journalists, as only 15-16 media personnel attended this conference.

According to the information, Taliban official Ikramuddin Kamil, who heads the Afghanistan’s Mumbai consulate since last year, reached out to these selected journalists himself via a phone call and gave them the informal invitation.

Similarly, women journalists have also expressed their anger at not inviting any female reporter.

The selective outreach, along with the aid of cherry-picking of journalists by Muttaqi’s media team, has sparked criticism within press circles, who argue that restricting coverage of such a crucial development undermines transparency and prevents wider media scrutiny of India’s evolving engagement with the Taliban leadership.

IANS