Flag to Fly Again at U.S. Embassy
The U.S. flag will be raised over the reopened embassy in Afghanistan on Sunday, signaling a renewed American diplomatic presence for the first time in 12 years, the State Department said.
Ambassador James Dobbins, a veteran diplomat, will officiate at the ceremony, joined by a small number of State Department employees and a Marine security guard detachment.
The mission will initially operate as a liaison office and will become a full-fledged embassy once diplomatic relations are restored. That will occur after an interim Afghan government takes office Dec. 22.
The flag that will go up on Sunday is the same one that was lowered in 1989, when the embassy was shut down amid the tumult in Kabul after the withdrawal of Soviet forces.
Officials said the flag has been kept at the State Department in the expectation that it would be raised again in Afghanistan.
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