The presence of a high-ranking official of the Afghan Taliban at a conference of the World Health Organization (WHO) in The Hague is being investigated by the Dutch government amid outrage in Germany over the appearance of the same official at a mosque in Cologne, informs dpa.

Dutch Health Minister Ernst Kuipers said Saturday on X, formerly Twitter, that an investigation is underway into how an official representative of the Taliban was able to attend the Nov. 6-8 conference.

Kuipers even appears in a photo with a Taliban representative, who media reports say is the leader of the Afghan Food and Drug Administration, Abdul Bari Omar. The photo was published on X more than a week ago.

Kuipers expressed regret over the photo, saying he did not know who it was at the time: “Of course, I don’t want to be associated in any way with this terrible regime: I support human rights, especially women’s rights. ” he said.

It became known about the presence of Abdul Bari Omar at the conference in the Netherlands only after the agitation related to his appearance in the mosque in Cologne.

German Interior Minister Nancy Feiser said on Saturday that “the appearance of a Taliban representative in Cologne is completely unacceptable and must be strongly condemned.” “No one should give radical Islamists a stage in Germany,” she told dpa.

Earlier, the German Foreign Ministry said that it “strongly condemns” the appearance of a Taliban representative. It appears that the German government was not informed of the trip and the official did not obtain a visa before traveling to Germany. “We are considering further measures in close dialogue with national authorities and partners.”

The Ditib organization, which owns the mosque, distanced itself from the appearance of an Afghan official on Thursday at a prayer house in the Chorweiler district. The event was organized by a local Afghan cultural association and promoted as having a religious nature. that our trust was taken in this way,” Ditib said.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasized on the X broadcast that the German government does not recognize the Taliban: “As long as the Taliban in Afghanistan grossly violates human rights, especially the rights of women and girls, there will be no normalization of relations with the Taliban regime.”

The authorities of North Rhine-Westphalia, in turn, condemned the appearance of an official representative of the Taliban regional administration to the Cologne newspaper Kolner Stadt-Anzeiger: “All the details of this case must now be fully clarified.”