The foreign relations of Afghanistan are in a transitional phase since the 2021 fall of Kabul to the Taliban and the collapse of the internationally-recognized Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. No country has recognised the new regime, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Although some countries have engaged in informal diplomatic contact with the Islamic Emirate, formal relations remain limited to representatives of the Islamic Republic.
Ambassadors of the United States are persons nominated by the president to serve as the country's diplomatic representatives to foreign nations, international organizations, and as ambassadors-at-large. Under Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, their appointment must be confirmed by the United States Senate; while an ambassador may be appointed during a recess, they can serve only until the end of the next session of Congress, unless subsequently confirmed.
Michele Jeanne Sison is an American diplomat and career member of the Senior Foreign Service serving as the assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs. She has previously served in various other diplomatic posts around the world on behalf of the United States, including ambassador to Haiti. Sison holds the personal rank of career ambassador.
Richard Eugene Hoagland is a career ambassador in the United States Department of State. He was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in State's Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs from 2013-2015. In the summer of 2016, based at the U.S. Embassy in Amman, Jordan, he was the senior U.S. liaison to the Russian Reconciliation Center at the Russian military base in Latakia, Syria. In 2017 he served as interim U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, the group appointed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to coordinate international peace-making efforts on the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Alberto Miguel Fernandez is a Cuban-American former diplomat. He was the head of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN), which includes Alhurra. Fernandez is currently vice president of the Middle East Media Research Institute, a position he held 2015-2017. He is a member of the Madrid Forum, an international group of right-wing and far-right individuals organized by Vox.
Cameron Munter is a retired diplomat, academic, and executive who now works as a global consultant. He was President and CEO of the EastWest Institute (EWI) in New York from 2015 to 2019, directing conflict resolution projects in Russia, China, the Middle East, South Asia, and the Balkans. He is currently a senior fellow of the CEVRO Institute in Prague and the Atlantic Council in Washington, and serves on a number of corporate and nonprofit boards.
Francis Joseph Ricciardone Jr. is a former President of the American University in Cairo. Ambassador Ricciardone was the United States ambassador to Turkey between 2011 and 2014. Previously he was Deputy Ambassador at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. He was also on leave from the U.S. Department of State as a guest scholar at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He has served as U.S. Ambassador to the Arab Republic of Egypt (2005–2008), the Republic of the Philippines and the Republic of Palau (2002–2005). As a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, he received U.S. government and other organization awards for his work in foreign policy and program management, political reporting and analysis, and peacekeeping.
David Duane Pearce is an American diplomat who served from 2013 to 2016 as the U.S. Ambassador to Greece. He also served as the United States Ambassador to Algeria, 2008–11 and as the U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem from 2003-2005. He was the Assistant Chief of Mission at the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan from 2011-2012; and served as the Acting United States Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan and as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia from 2012-2013.
Richard Boyce Norland is an American diplomat. He has served as the United States Ambassador to Libya.
Earl Anthony Wayne is an American diplomat. Formerly Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs, Ambassador to Argentina and Deputy Ambassador to Afghanistan, Wayne served nearly four years as Ambassador to Mexico. He was nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate in August, 2011. He departed Mexico City for Washington July 31, 2015 and retired from the State Department on September 30, 2015. Wayne attained the highest rank in the U.S. diplomatic service: Career Ambassador. He is currently a Professorial Lecturer and Distinguished Diplomat in Residence at American University's School of International Service where he teaches courses related to diplomacy and US foreign policy. Wayne also works with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Atlantic Council, the Center for Strategic and International Studies,. Wayne is co-chair of the Mexico Institute's Advisory Board at the Wilson Center. He is also on the board of the American Academy of Diplomacy and the Public Diplomacy Council of America. Wayne is an independent consultant, speaker and writer and works with several not-for-profit professional associations. He was an adviser for HSBC Latin America on improving management of financial crime risk from 2015 until 2019 and served on the board of the American Foreign Service Association from 2017 to 2019.
'Mohammed Ahmed Al Mahmood' was the extraordinary and authorized ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to the Federal Republic of Germany from 2004 until 2012, when he was succeeded by Juma Mubarak Al Junaibi
Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser is a Qatari diplomat and the former permanent representative of Qatar to the United Nations, appointed on 11 September 1998. Prior to this office at the United Nations, Al-Nasser had served as the ambassador to Jordan from 1993. He worked for his country's foreign affairs department beginning in November 1972. He was the President of the Sixty-sixth session of the United Nations General Assembly from 14 September 2011 to 18 September 2012.
Salāhuddīn Rabbānī is an Afghan diplomat and politician who was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan from February 2015 to October 2019. He is also the owner of the Noor television network.
Deborah Kay Jones is an American diplomat and the former United States Ambassador to Libya. Prior to her appointment in Libya, she was the United States Ambassador to Kuwait from 2008 to 2011.
Todd Crawford Chapman is an American career diplomat who has served as the United States ambassador to Brazil from 2020 to 2021 and as the United States ambassador to Ecuador from 2016 to 2019.
The Taliban has ruled Afghanistan as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan since taking control by force in 2021, overthrowing the internationally recognized Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The takeover was widely criticized by the international community, and no countries have extended diplomatic recognition to the new regime, despite nominally maintaining relations with Afghanistan. The Taliban has campaigned for international recognition since the takeover. Several countries have vowed never to recognize the Islamic Emirate, and others have said they will do so only if human rights in the country are respected. Some countries have accredited Taliban diplomats at the chargé d'affaires level despite not recognizing the Islamic Emirate. In September 2023, China became the first country to formally name a new ambassador to the country since the takeover, and in January 2024 recognized the Taliban's envoy to China; however, China still does not formally recognize the Taliban.
