Asia Development Bank vacates Kabul office

The Asian Development Bank, ADB, has shut its offices in Kabul after Afghan officials removed the security barricades around its compound, state-run television reported. An ADB representative was quoted as saying that the Afghan interior ministry had accepted the bank’s position that the security barriers must be put back before it reopens its offices both in Kabul and in other cities. But interior ministry spokesman Mohammad Yousuf Stanikzai denied this report, saying a presidential decree dated December 31 gave all organisations one week to remove the barriers around their compounds. When that deadline expired, Stanikzai said, the ministry itself had to start removing barriers.