Markus Potzel will have to act as a supplicant. When the German diplomat in Doha negotiates with the Taliban in the Gulf emirate of Qatar, he has urgent concerns: The new rulers in Kabul should not only enable the safe transfer of German citizens to the airport, but also allow the German local staff to travel to Germany. They categorically deny this to Afghan citizens.
The ambassador, born in 1965, knows his interlocutors because he often sat across from them in the luxury hotel “Sharq Village” on the Corniche of Qatar. There Potzel, who until recently was the Federal Government’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, closely accompanied the negotiations between the radical Islamic fighters and the delegation of Afghan politics and society about a power-sharing and established many contacts.
He also knows the country’s problems well: from 2014 to 2016, the diplomat, who grew up in the GDR, was ambassador in Kabul – at a time when bomb attacks and assassinations spread fear and terror in the capital. “Anyone who has been to Kabul is crisis-hardened,” he said at the time.
At least since the conquest of Kabul, the negotiator should no longer have any illusions about the nature of his counterparts. In the Foreign Office, too, the feeling is now widespread that the West has been deceived by the insurgents. Although they sat at the negotiating table in Doha, they made no concessions, just waited until the international troops had withdrawn and the way was free for them.
The conviction that Berlin still has levers in its hands is also crumbling because the Taliban want to be removed from the UN sanctions list, are hungry for diplomatic recognition and are barely able to act without further billions in the country.
They will demand something in return from the German ambassador in Doha. He will hardly be able to offer diplomatic recognition from Germany – it would be a political declaration of bankruptcy. And Foreign Minister Heiko Maas narrowed the scope when he announced that “not a cent” would flow out of Germany when the Taliban take power.
The new rulers in Kabul, however, could demand a kind of bounty for every local employee. As “crisis-hardened” Markus Potzel may be, he may be facing the most difficult diplomatic task of his life.
I am a technology author with 8 years of experience in journalism. My writing covers the latest technology advancements and trends, drawing on my expertise in news journalism and social media platforms. I have contributed to major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Reuters.
