For a rustic whose authorities will not be recognised by any nation, Afghanistan’s appearing Overseas Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi has had an unusually busy calendar in latest weeks.
He has hosted his counterpart from Pakistan, spoken on the telephone with India’s overseas minister, and jetted to Iran and China. In Beijing, he additionally met the Pakistani overseas minister once more. On Wednesday, he joined trilateral talks with delegations from Pakistan and China.
This, regardless that the ruling Taliban have traditionally had tense relations with most of those international locations, and at the moment have taut ties with Pakistan, a one-time ally with whom belief is at an all-time low.
Whereas neither the United Nations nor any of its member states formally recognise the Taliban, analysts say that this diplomatic overdrive means that the motion is much from a pariah on the worldwide stage.
So why are a number of international locations in Afghanistan’s neighbourhood queueing as much as interact diplomatically with the Taliban, whereas avoiding formal recognition?
We unpack the Taliban’s newest high-level regional engagements and have a look at why India, Pakistan and Iran are all making an attempt to befriend Afghanistan’s rulers, 4 years after they marched on Kabul and grabbed energy.
Who did Muttaqi meet or converse to in latest weeks?
A timeline of Afghanistan’s latest diplomatic engagements:
- April 19: Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Overseas Minister Ishaq Dar travels with a high-level delegation to Kabul to satisfy Muttaqi and different Afghan officers. The 2 sides mentioned an ongoing spat over Pakistan’s repatriation of Afghan refugees, bilateral commerce and financial cooperation, the Afghanistan Ministry of Overseas Affairs mentioned in an announcement.
- Might 6: Dar and Muttaqi spoke once more on what turned out to be the eve of India’s assault on Pakistan, resulting in 4 days of missile and drone assaults between the 2 nuclear-armed neighbours. The trade of fireside occurred after India accused Pakistan of being concerned within the April 22 Pahalgam assault in Indian-administered Kashmir, which left 26 folks useless.
- Might 15: India’s Exterior Affairs Minister S Jaishankar holds a telephone dialog with Muttaqi to precise his gratitude for the Taliban’s condemnation of the Pahalgam assaults.
- Might 17: Muttaqi arrives within the Iranian capital Tehran to attend the Tehran Dialogue Discussion board, the place he additionally holds conferences with Overseas Minister Abbas Araghchi and President Massoud Pazeshkian.
- Might 21: Muttaqi visits Beijing. Trilateral talks between Afghanistan, Pakistan and China happen geared toward boosting commerce and safety between the three international locations.
Head of the Taliban’s political workplace in Doha, Qatar, Suhail Shaheen mentioned the group is a “actuality of at this time’s Afghanistan” because it “controls all territory and borders of the nation”.
“The regional international locations know this reality and, as such, they interact with the Islamic Emirate at varied ranges, which is a realistic and rational method for my part,” he instructed Al Jazeera, referring to the identify by which the Taliban refers back to the present Afghan state.
“We consider it’s by way of engagement that we are able to discover options to points,” he added, arguing that formal recognition of the Taliban authorities “not be delayed moreover”.
“Our area has its personal pursuits and objectives that we must always adhere to.”
Why is India warming as much as the Taliban?
It’s an unlikely partnership. Through the Taliban’s preliminary rule between 1996 and 2001, the Indian authorities refused to have interaction with the Afghan group and didn’t recognise their rule, which on the time was solely recognised by Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
India, which had supported the sooner Soviet-backed authorities of Mohammad Najibullah, shut down its embassy in Kabul as soon as the Taliban got here to energy: It seen the Taliban as a proxy of Pakistan’s intelligence businesses, which had supported the mujahideen in opposition to Moscow.
As an alternative, New Delhi supported the anti-Taliban opposition group, the Northern Alliance.
Following the United States-led ousting of the Taliban in 2001, India reopened its Kabul embassy and have become a big growth associate for Afghanistan, investing greater than $3bn in infrastructure, well being, training and water tasks, in accordance with its Ministry of Exterior Affairs.
However its embassy and consulates got here underneath repeated, lethal assaults from the Taliban and its allies, together with the Haqqani group.
After the Taliban’s return to energy in August 2021, New Delhi evacuated its embassy and as soon as once more refused to recognise the group. Nonetheless, not like in the course of the Taliban’s first stint in energy, India constructed diplomatic contacts with the group – first behind closed doorways, then, more and more, publicly.
The logic was easy, say analysts: India realised that by refusing to have interaction with the Taliban earlier, it had ceded affect in Afghanistan to Pakistan, its regional rival.
In June 2022, lower than a yr after the Taliban’s return to energy, India reopened its embassy in Kabul by deploying a workforce of “technical consultants” to run it. In November 2024, the Taliban appointed an appearing consul on the Afghan consulate in Mumbai.
Then, final January, Indian Overseas Secretary Vikram Misri and Muttaqi each flew to Dubai for a gathering – the highest-level face-to-face interplay between New Delhi and the Taliban thus far.
Kabir Taneja, a deputy director on the New Delhi-based Observer Analysis Basis, says not coping with “no matter political actuality units in in Kabul was by no means an possibility” for India.
“Nobody is happy per se that the truth is the Taliban,” Taneja instructed Al Jazeera. Nonetheless, whereas India’s “decades-long” efforts to foster goodwill with the Afghan folks have confronted challenges because the Taliban takeover, they haven’t been completely undone.
“Even the Taliban’s ideological stronghold, the Darul Uloom Deoband seminary, is in India,” he added. “These are ties with the nation and its actors that can’t be vanquished, and should be handled realistically and virtually,” he added.
What’s Pakistan’s calculus?
One of many Taliban’s foremost backers between 1996 and 2021, Pakistan has seen its relationship with the group plummet lately.
For the reason that Taliban’s takeover in 2021, Pakistan has seen a surge in violent assaults, which Islamabad attributes to armed teams, such because the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Pakistan insists that the TTP operates from Afghan territory and blames the ruling Taliban for permitting them sanctuary – a declare the Taliban authorities denies.
Rising in 2007 amid the US-led so-called “conflict on terror”, the Pakistan Taliban has lengthy challenged Islamabad’s authority by way of a violent insurrection. Although distinct from the Afghan Taliban, the 2 are seen as ideologically aligned.
Dar’s go to to Kabul and subsequent communication with Muttaqi symbolize a “tactical, advert hoc thaw” reasonably than a considerable shift in Pakistan-Afghanistan relations, says Rabia Akhtar, director on the Centre for Safety, Technique and Coverage Analysis on the College of Lahore.
Through the latest India-Pakistan disaster, Islamabad grew more and more involved about the opportunity of Afghanistan permitting its territory for use by New Delhi in opposition to Pakistan, she instructed. “This has elevated Islamabad’s urgency to safe its western border,” Akhtar instructed Al Jazeera.
In the meantime, Pakistan’s determination earlier this yr to expel Afghan refugees – together with many who’ve spent most of their lives in Pakistan – and frequent border closures disrupting commerce are additionally sources of pressure within the relationship.
The refugees query, specifically, may show to be a key issue that may form future relations between the 2 international locations, Akhtar mentioned.
“Whereas Pakistan has pushed for repatriation of undocumented Afghans, Kabul views such deportations as punitive,” she mentioned. “If this dialogue is a sign of a recognition on each side that confrontation is unsustainable, particularly amidst shifting regional alignments and financial pressures, then that’s a superb signal.”
The Taliban’s Shaheen mentioned whereas Kabul wished good relations with Islamabad, they need to be “reciprocated” and {that a} “blame sport” will not be in anybody’s curiosity.
“Now we have taken sensible steps so far as it issues us,” he mentioned, noting that Afghanistan had began constructing checkpoints “alongside the road adjoining to Pakistan to be able to forestall anybody from crossing”.
“Nonetheless, their inside safety is the duty of their safety forces not ours.”
China, on the trilateral talks in Beijing on Wednesday, mentioned Kabul and Islamabad had agreed in precept to improve diplomatic ties and would ship their respective ambassadors on the earliest.
However, Akhtar doesn’t count on the “core distrust” between the 2 neighbours, notably over alleged TTP sanctuaries, to “go away any time quickly”.
“We should always have a look at this shift as a part of Pakistan’s broader disaster administration post-India-Pak disaster reasonably than structural reconciliation,” Akhtar asserted.
What does Iran need from its ties with the Taliban?
Like India, Tehran refused to recognise the Taliban when it was first in energy, whereas backing the Northern Alliance, particularly after the 1998 killing of Iranian diplomats in Mazar-i-Sharif by Taliban fighters.
Iran amassed hundreds of troops on its jap border, practically going to conflict with the Taliban over the incident.
Involved concerning the intensive US navy footprint within the area post-9/11, Iran was mentioned to be quietly participating with the Taliban, providing restricted assist in an effort to counter American affect and shield its personal strategic pursuits.
For the reason that Taliban took again reins of the nation practically 4 years in the past, Iran once more confirmed willingness to construct ties with rulers in Kabul on a lot of safety, humanitarian and trade-related issues, analysts say.
Shaheen, head of the Taliban’s workplace in Doha, mentioned that each Iran and India beforehand thought the group was “underneath the affect of Pakistan”.
“Now they know it’s not the truth. In view of this floor actuality, they’ve adopted a brand new practical and pragmatic method, which is sweet for everybody,” he mentioned.
Ibraheem Bahiss, analyst on the Worldwide Disaster Group, mentioned the assembly between Muttaqi and Iranian President Pezeshkian doesn’t sign an “impending official recognition”. Nonetheless, he mentioned, “pragmatic issues” have pushed Iran to have interaction the Taliban, given its “key pursuits” in Afghanistan.
“Safety-wise, Tehran desires allies in containing the ISIS [ISIL] native chapter. Tehran has additionally been in search of to broaden its commerce relations with Afghanistan, now being one in all its main buying and selling companions,” he instructed Al Jazeera.
In January 2024, twin suicide bombings in Kerman marked one in all Iran’s deadliest assaults in a long time, killing at the very least 94 folks. The Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), an Afghanistan-based offshoot of ISIL, claimed duty.
Lately, ISKP has additionally emerged as a big problem to the Taliban’s rule, having carried out a number of high-profile assaults throughout Afghanistan.
Bahiss added that Tehran additionally wanted a “prepared associate” in addressing the difficulty of some 780,000 Afghan refugees in Iran, in addition to the “transboundary water flowing from Helmand River “.
In Might 2023, tensions between the 2 neighbours flared, main to frame clashes through which two Iranian border guards and one Taliban fighter had been killed.
The violence got here after former and now deceased Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi warned the Taliban to not violate a 1973 treaty by limiting the circulate of water from the Helmand River to Iran’s jap areas. Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers denied the accusation.
