Kabul, December 27:

The Afghan government expelled two senior diplomats from the UN and European Union today after accusing them of holding unauthorised meetings with Taliban militants in Afghanistan’s volatile south, officials said.

The diplomats — one worked for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and the other was the acting head of the European Union mission — had travelled to Musa Qala in the southern Helmand province on Monday, where they met with local leaders, said Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for the UN mission.

After that trip the two were accused of meeting with Taliban militants and were told to leave the country, according to Afghan and Western officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly. They left the country today, Siddique said.

President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, has said the two were “involved in some activities that were not their jobs.” An official at EU headquarters in Brussels confirmed that the EU official expelled is Michael Semple, deputy EU representative. The official labelled the incident a “misunderstanding.” The UN official asked to leave the country, Mervyn Patterson, is British, from Northern Ireland.

The Afghan government has voiced a growing interest in meeting Taliban leaders to try to persuade them to join the government and put down their arms. But the diplomats’ expulsion will make some Western nations and international organisations wary of making their own overtures to the militants in an effort to end the insurgency.