KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The Taliban have appointed Mufti Noor Ahmad Noor, a senior official in the group’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as chargé d’affaires of the Afghanistan Embassy in New Delhi, the Indian outlet The Hindu reported.
The newspaper, citing official sources, reported that Noor, who previously served as the director general of the first political department at the Taliban’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has arrived in New Delhi and is expected to formally assume his duties in the coming days.
According to the report, the appointment follows discussions between India and the Taliban during the visit of Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi to Delhi in October 2025. During the visit, Muttaqi met with India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and other senior officials. Noor accompanied Muttaqi on the week-long trip, which included a visit to the Darul Uloom madrassa in Deoband.
Neither India’s officials nor the Taliban have confirmed the appointment.
The reported appointment comes after a previous attempt by the Taliban to install a chargé d’affaires in New Delhi failed in April 2023, when the appointed diplomat was blocked from entering the embassy premises by staffers associated with the previous Afghan government.
Like much of the world, India has not formally recognized the Taliban regime but has gradually expanded its engagement with the group in recent years. The country, which maintained close ties with previous Afghan governments, closed its embassy in Kabul after the collapse of the former administration but reopened it in 2022 at a limited, technical level. Following Muttaqi’s visit to India last year, India’s Ministry of External Affairs announced it would upgrade the Kabul mission to full embassy status.
If confirmed, India would join a small group of regional countries, including China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey, that maintain diplomatic engagement with the Taliban and have accepted the group’s diplomats on their soil. Of these, only Russia has formally recognized the Taliban, whose leaders remain subject to UN sanctions and travel restrictions.
The deepening India–Taliban ties come amid rising tensions between Pakistan and the Taliban over cross-border militancy, with Islamabad accusing the group of offering a safe haven to the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), blamed for dozens of deadly attacks on Pakistani security forces and civilians—a claim the Taliban deny.
