The United Arab Emirates Foreign Ministry in a statement on Wednesday said it has received the credentials of Badruddin Moulana as the Taliban’s ambassador.
The statement noted that Saif Abdullah Al Shamsi, the Ministry’s Deputy Director of Protocol, received Moulana’s credentials.
However, in the English and Arabic versions of the statement, Moulana is referred to as the “Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan,” despite representing the Taliban administration.
The UAE is now the second country, after China, to accept the credentials of a Taliban-appointed ambassador.
In recent months, several Taliban officials, including Abdul Kabir, the Deputy Prime Minister who is listed on the United Nations sanctions list, have traveled to the UAE.
Despite these developments, the Taliban government in Afghanistan has not been officially recognized by any country. Richard Bennett, the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan, recently urged the international community to avoid normalizing relations with the Taliban, citing their ongoing restrictions on the rights of women and girls.
