Decoding Amir Khan Muttaqi’s India Visit
India is now following a regional approach. This should work well for it – protect its strategic interests in the region, while hedge againstany threats.
By Aditi Bhaduri
In what is being billed as a landmark visit, Taliban acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi began a week-long visit to India yesterday. This is the first ministerial-level engagement between India and the Taliban since the group’s return to power in August 2021, and follows a temporary travel exemption granted by the UN Security Council’s Taliban Sanctions Committee on September 30, lifting Muttaqi’s long-standing travel ban.
Upon arrival, Muttaqi was welcomed by India’s Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, who said New Delhi looks forward to “engaging discussions on bilateral and regional matters.” He has been holding meetings with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, and will also visit the Taj Mahal, Darul Uloom Deoband, and Afghan community representatives during his stay.
India was amongst the last in the region to open channels of communication with the Taliban, whe it was imminent that the US would withdraw from that country. It had been amongst the most consistent supporters of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, committing $3 billion to the war torn country’sreconstruction, and capacity building of the Afghan people.
India has not yet formally recognised the Taliban regime, and even ministerial interactions have been minimum – till now the first andonky one was when Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar held a telephone call with Muttaqi in the wake of Operation Sindoor. This visit,thus, heralds a massive, if a cautious diplomatic shift, in India ‘s approach to the regime.
Muttaqi’s Delhi sojourn follows a visit to Moscow, where he led a delegation for the first time and participated in the Moscow Format of talks on Afghanistan. Indian Ambassador to Russia Vinay Kumar participated in the consultation along with representatives of Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, as well as of course Afghanistan. A joint statement released at the end of the talks, where parties reaffirmed their unwavering support for the establishment of Afghanistan as an independent, united and peaceful state, and for strengthening counter-terrorism cooperation at both bilateral and multilateral levels, “so that Afghan soil is not used as a threat to the security of the neighboring countries and beyond.”
The statement made two key points. One was the intent to develop “regional economic projects with Afghan participation and ……the active integration of Afghanistan into the system of regional connectivity.” The other was calling “unacceptable the attempts by countries to deploy their military infrastructure in Afghanistan and neighboring states, since this does not serve the interests of regional peace and stability.”
The first points to the intent and determination of the participants of the talks – all in Afghanistan ‘s neighborhood to continue building ties with and integrate Taliban-ruled Afghanistan in the regional economic, connectivity, and security architecture, while the second was a thinly veiled reference to US President Donald Trump’s demand to have the Taliban hand over the strategic Bagram air base to American control. The Taliban leadership had refused to do and this point in the joint statement reflected the opposition of all of Taliban’s neighbours and regional countries to another US and extra-regional presence in Afghanistan.
The issue of Bagram may be far more complicated – sources say that continuing US military bases in Afghanistan is linked to the secret annexures of the 2020 Doha Accords that the first Trump administration signed with the Taliban which in turn facilitated their return to Afghanistan. Muttaqi was a key interlocutor in these However, the Taliban leadership is now hamstrung by the opposition of their other members and loyalists to a renewed US presence in the country, as well as its regional partners on whom it is now dependent for trade, humanitarian aid, and most importantly – legitimization of their regime. Internal Taliban fissures also plays a role, with divisions between the Quetta Shura and the Kandahar Shura, the pro-Pakistan and anti-Pakistan leaders within the Kandahar Shura, and so forth as last night’s bombing of Kabul by the Pakistan airforce demonstrates.
What is important, nevertheless, is that India also joined in this statement, expressing its intent to deal with the Taliban, and more importantly, expressing opposition to renewed US presence in Afghanistan. This heralds India’s alignment with the regional process and approach to the Taliban, a shift in India’s Afghan policy from the days of the Islamic Republic when it had aligned its interests with those of the US and NATO. Of course this alignment had been imperative then – think of the Taliban’s then close links with the ISI, the brutal hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC 814, or the indiscriminate targetting of Indian personnel and workers in Afghanistan, or the Taliban’s sheltering of Osamabin Laden and his Al Qaeda.
But now, in a startling demonstration that change is the only constant in this fickle world of ours, Muttaqi delivered a speech in Moscow where he warned that terrorist organisations, like Daesh, were setting up training and operational bases in neighbouring countries, which posed a growing regional threat. The singular threat of the emergence of ISIS-KP, which has wreaked death and devastation not just in Afghanistan, but also Iran and Russia, and the dangers it posed to China and the other Central Asian countries on the region, has been a major factor that countries from Russia to China, Iran to Uzbekistan have come around to recognising the Taliban ax the de-facto rulers of Afghanistan. Moreover, the Taliban itself has been battling these very forces it had once aligned itself with. In Moscow , Muttaqi announced that Afghanistan faced threats from Daesh. In the four years it has been in power in Kabul it has managed to takeover much of the country including the Panjshir Valley,which had been the stronghold of the opposition National Resistance. But no neighboring country has been faced with any terror emanating from Afghanistan.
The only country that has been at odds with it is Pakistan, but this a result of Pakistan’s own feckless policy of creating and nurturing terror groups, and its own indiscriminate bombings of Afghanistan’s bordering provinces last December , which claimed the lives of mostly women and children. This also proves that while the Taliban may have been created by Pakistan, it is no longer under the latter’s control and is independent in its policies and activities, something that India welcomes.
Almost all regional countries and powers have extended them recognition. Russia became the first country this year to recognise the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, but Taliban envoys are present in many other countries, like China and Kazakhstan, with whom this author had the opportunity to meet and interact. Other countries like Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, UAE, Turkey, and of course Qatar and Pakistan have been engaging with the Taliban for even longer.
Three main pillars undergird this recognition: regional security as discussed above; trade and connectivity; and geopolitics.
The Taliban 2.0 are also not the Taliban 1.0. Since taking over Afghanistan they have made numerous overtures to the international community, including India, promising good neighborly relations, as well as security. The Taliban has on many occasions pledged against permitting Afghan territory to be used to launch attacks on other states, something that has held true. It is also seeking investors and trade partners to develop its economy, without which its rule would be fragile. The freeze by the UN of some $9 billion Afghan foreign reserves has added to its woes.
Next, Afghanistan is a resource rich country, whose geostrategic location at the heart of Asia makes it a natural roundabout connecting South and Central Asia. The routes through Af-Pak are the shortest trade routes for countries of South and Central Asia to access each others goods and markets, while Afghanistan can reap major transit dividends. Projects like India ‘s Chabahar Port was intended not just for accessing Afghanistan, but through it, the markets and resources of Central Asia too.
Finally, geopolitically, neutralizing any threats from Afghanistan is important for India as it faces renewed hostility from Pakistan, trade hostility with US, which is afresh realigning itself with Pakistan. Moreover, there are fresh intelligence reports that the ISIS-KP is aligning itself with Pakistan-based terror groups like the LeT. For Russia, China, and Iran, locked in conflict with the west, it is important to align geopolitically with Afghanistan to preempt it from again becoming a base for Western powers.
India is now following a regional approach. This should work well for it – protect its strategic interests in the region, while hedge againstany threats. For, in spite of extending recognition to the Taliban, and the Taliban walking the talk on preventing terror threats emanating from its territory, grey areas still persist. The first are the internal rifts and rivalries that plague the organization, and which can spill over its borders. Next, are the Taliban’s domestic policies towards sections of its own population – in particular women, girls, and minorities, which has brought it much infamy. India has always followed a non-prescriptive policy regarding every country. Still, to practice democracy and the rule of law at home, while turning a blind eye to a medieval regime would go against India’s own values. By building bridges with the Taliban, and continuing its humanitarian aid and capacity building for the Afghan people as it has always done, India can and should , together with regional peers encourage the regime to rethink many of its domestic policies.
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