After the Taliban's de facto government cut ties with a number of diplomatic missions operated abroad by diplomats loyal to the ousted Afghan republic, the British and Norwegian authorities have opted to shut down Afghan embassies on their soil.
Both Oslo and London say their decisions in no way represent official recognition of the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan, which no country recognizes due to concerns over a woeful human rights record and other failures to live up to promises it made before seizing power in August 2021.
But experts say the embassy closures are likely to pave the way for more engagement with the Taliban, which controls all of Afghanistan's territory and has increased its hold on power.
Diplomats who served the former Afghan government were left in limbo when the Taliban took control, but remained open for business in some Western states and continued to assist Afghan citizens.
The window on their operations began to close when the Taliban announced in July that it was cutting ties with 14 such missions in Western countries and that it would not accept any consular documents they processed, a critical source of funding to keep them running.
Many of the consular services, such as verification of identity documents or police clearance, offered by the embassies do require a degree of cooperation from the country's government because diplomatic missions might not be able to access all government data.
This month, the British Foreign Office announced that it was shutting down the Afghan Embassy in London, explaining to RFE/RL on September 9 that the decision was made after the "dismissal of its staff by the Taliban."
Norway quickly followed suit, announcing that the Afghan Embassy in Oslo would be shut down on September 12.
SEE ALSO: Afghan Embassy In London To Close After Diplomats Dismissed, Britain SaysBoth the British and Norwegian governments have indicated that the move does not amount to a formal recognition of the Taliban's hard-line government. And the embassy buildings, which are Afghanistan's properties, will be eventually handed over to a "recognized" government of Afghanistan.
But Hameed Hakimi, an Afghanistan expert, says the decisions to shut the embassies can be taken as "reality setting in" that the Taliban is "unlikely to be replaced in the immediate future."
Afghanistan's embassy in London
And for the Taliban, he says, it creates an opportunity to argue that its rule is being acknowledged, even without formal recognition.
"The Taliban can use this to their advantage in their pursuit of claiming legitimacy with the Afghans and internationally," said Hakimi, an associate fellow at London's Chatham House think tank.
More than a dozen countries, mostly Afghanistan's neighbors, already operate embassies in Kabul, and some have accredited Taliban diplomats. The Taliban government also partially controls diplomatic missions in some countries, and has established working relations with Afghan diplomatic missions in the Czech Republic, Spain, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, and the Afghan Consulate in Munich.
The missions operating in Western countries staffed by diplomats appointed by the previous government are the outlier.
Hakimi said that if all those missions are shut down, it "truly signifies the closure of the chapter of the Afghan Islamic Republic."
The Afghan Islamic Republic, as it was formally known, emerged soon after a U.S.-led military alliance toppled the Taliban government in November 2001 following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
Nearly two decades later, the internationally recognized Afghan republic collapsed as the Taliban seized power in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Taliban, meanwhile, recreated its brutal emirate from the 1990s by imposing harsh bans and discriminatory laws that resulted in widespread human rights violations. Afghan women and girls are deprived of education and employment in most sectors and lack fundamental freedoms.
These Taliban policies have so far kept its government from being officially recognized. This absence of recognition has complicated engagement with the Taliban government on important issues, such as humanitarian aid, and made it difficult for the estimated 2 million Afghans living in Western countries to access consular services.
Afghanistan's embassy in Oslo
Graeme Smith, a senior Afghanistan analyst at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, says Western governments might be acting on the UN special coordinator's recommendation to facilitate the processing of documentation for Afghans abroad.
In his report endorsed by the UN Security Council in December 2023, Feridun Sinirlioglu, the UN special coordinator for Afghanistan, called for better cooperation between the Taliban regime and the outside world to ensure that Afghans can obtain the paperwork they need to continue with their daily lives.
"Afghans have been suffering in limbo without clarity about where to go when they need identity papers or travel documents," Smith said, describing how Afghans who still do not have travel documents from another country suffer from the lack of consular services.
"The steps we are witnessing now may represent practical efforts by some governments" to remedy the situation, Smith said.
The challenge remains, he said, to ensure that efforts "aimed at pressuring the regime do not sabotage the lives and livelihoods of Afghans."
Many Western capitals are also grappling with the complex issue of what to do with Afghan asylum seekers whose applications were rejected.
Last month, Germany deported 28 Afghan men convicted of crimes in the country to Kabul, with Qatar playing an intermediary role in securing the Taliban's cooperation in accepting the returning Afghans.
Smith said that some countries "are discovering the usefulness" of having a consular presence "connected to the authorities in Kabul" if they need to arrange the return of Afghan migrants.
"But it's unclear if that motivated the recent closures," he said.
Both Britain and Norway have not said anything about whether they will allow the Taliban government to offer consular services in London and Oslo.
The fates of the Afghan Embassy in Berlin and consulate in Bonn are not clear, although the consulate in Munich is likely to remain open because it cooperates with the Taliban government on consular services.
In London, Afghanistan expert Hakimi said the closure could create an "opportunity for the Taliban to lobby with the Western countries" and allow its representatives to at least run counselor services.
These Afghan diplomatic missions can remain closed indefinitely, similar to what happened in the United States, where the Afghan Embassy and two consulates have been closed since March 2002. The Afghan Embassy in Canada offers remote consular services to Afghans living in the United States.
In Norway, Afghans have mixed feelings about their embassy's closure.
Sima Nouri, an Afghan woman living in Oslo, is worried over how her compatriots will now access consular services.
"There is a possibility that the process of forced deportation of Afghan refugees will begin," she told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. "This process, however, must be stopped."
Mina Rafiq, another Afghan woman in Norway, prefers shutting the embassy down to cooperating with the Taliban.
"This might work to the advantage of Afghan asylum seekers," she said, "because the Norwegian government will now have to give them necessary documents."