During his visit, Muttaqi met with India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and announced the upgrade of India’s technical mission in Kabul to a full embassy — a marked diplomatic gesture. Later, at a press briefing held at the Afghan Embassy in Delhi, women journalists were barred from attending—a decision widely decried as “unacceptable” by media veterans and right.

The censorship underscores a stark dissonance: India, an avowed champion of women’s rights, hosting a diplomatic event where discriminatory norms of the guest state go unchallenged. Observers questioned why the exclusion was permitted on Indian soil, calling it tacit complicitts groups.

Muttaqi used the conference to reaffirm that Afghanistan would not allow its territory to be used against any country—a message that plays to New Delhi’s security calculus. But the optics of the journalist ban have overshadowed diplomatic messaging.