Immigrants issue
\n BRUSSELS
\nThe European \u200cUnion is planning to invite officials from Afghanistan\u2019s Taliban government to Brussels for their first known official visit, to discuss ways to deport some Afghan migrants back to Afghanistan.
\nWestern countries have declined to recognize the Taliban since the Islamist fighters swept back to power in Afghanistan five years ago, overthrowing a government that had been backed by US and NATO troops \u200cfor two decades. An \u200cEU spokesperson said the planned \u200cBrussels meeting was being set up in response to a request from several EU member states.
\nNo date had been set yet, and the meeting did not mean the EU had recognized the Taliban.The meeting appeared to be the first publicly announced visit by Taliban officials to \u200cBrussels, although the spokesperson said \u200che was not able to confirm this. EU official\u2019s \u200chad already traveled to Kabul for \u200ca meeting in January, the spokesperson said, and the EU was now working \u201con a potential follow-up meeting at technical level in Brussels with the de-facto authority\u2019s \u200cin Afghanistan to pursue these discussions.\u201d
\nHundreds of thousands of Afghans have sought asylum in Europe since the Taliban takeover of the country. European law allows some migrants who commit crimes or are considered a security threat to be deported, but this has been difficult to carry out with Afghanistan because of the lack of diplomatic relations. The EU spokesperson said Sweden was helping to coordinate the planned Brussels meeting. The Swedish government did not immediately reply to a request for comment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Immigrants issue BRUSSELS The European \u200cUnion is planning to invite officials from Afghanistan\u2019s Taliban government to Brussels for their first known official visit, to discuss ways to deport some Afghan migrants back to Afghanistan. Western countries have declined to recognize the Taliban since the Islamist fighters swept back to power in Afghanistan five years ago, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-546168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n