Germany
\nGermany on Monday condemned an appearance by a Taliban official at a mosque in Cologne, with the interior minister demanding explanations from the Turkish organisation running the site.
\nAbdul Bari Omar, who is an official with the Taliban-run health authority in Afghanistan, attended the mosque to speak at a conference organised by an Afghan association in the city.
\n\u201cThe appearance of a representative of the Taliban in Cologne is completely unacceptable and must be strongly condemned.
\n\u201cNo-one should offer radicals a platform in Germany,\u201d said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser.
\nShe urged Ditib, the Turkish-Islamic association managing the mosque in the city\u2019s Chorweiler district to explain \u201chow it could have been possible that the room was used\u201d in this manner.
\nDitib\u2019s management said it had no prior knowledge of the Taliban official\u2019s planned appearance.
\n\u201cContrary to the original contract, it was transformed into a political event and a speaker who was not known to us had been invited,\u201d it said.
\nDitib rejected \u201cany proximity \u2014 even spiritual \u2014 to the Taliban\u201d.
\nThe foreign ministry said the Taliban official had not been issued with a visa to enter Germany.
\nHe had apparently been able to travel to the country using a Schengen visa issued by a \u201cneighbouring country\u201d, it added.
\nLocal media said Omar had arrived from the Netherlands, where he had participated in a World Health Organisation conference in early November.
\nSince the Taliban swept back to power in August 2021, billions of dollars in aid and assets have been frozen by the West in what the United Nations has described as an \u201cunprecedented fiscal shock\u201d to the aid-dependent Afghan economy.
\nDitib \u2014 the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs \u2014 is one of the largest Islamic organisations in Germany.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Germany Germany on Monday condemned an appearance by a Taliban official at a mosque in Cologne, with the interior minister demanding explanations from the Turkish organisation running the site. Abdul Bari Omar, who is an official with the Taliban-run health authority in Afghanistan, attended the mosque to speak at a conference organised by an Afghan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369308,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-369272","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n