A diplomatic row erupted today between Afghanistan and key aid partners after Kabul ordered the expulsion of an Irishman and a Briton working for the EU and the UN, accusing them of threatening state security.
With Afghan President Hamid Karzai away in neighboring Pakistan, a government official said that acting European Union mission head Michael Semple, who is from the Republic, and senior United Nations official Marvin Patterson from Northern Ireland had held an illegal meeting with members of the Taliban and must leave by tomorrow.
"It is the government's last decision. They are persona non grata," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Western diplomats in Kabul closed ranks and insisted the row was merely a "misunderstanding". Mr Semple told Reuters that it would "not be appropriate" for him to comment on the matter at this time.
The government accused the pair - both old Afghan hands and experts in local languages and customs - of holding talks with Taliban members in Helmand province, the heartland of Afghanistan's drug-producing poppy industry and part of the main Taliban strongholds.
"Not only did they hold talks with the Taliban, but also had given them money," the Afghan official said. "It is not clear whether they were supporting the insurgency or not."
He said it was also not known if the meeting was a personal initiative or if they were acting in an official capacity, but 50 Afghans - some of them colleagues of the pair -have been detained and investigated over their links to the matter.
Mr Semple and Mr Patterson have lived and worked in Afghanistan for more than a decade - even during the rule of the Taliban that was toppled with the US-led invasion in 2001.