India has announced that it will join a small group of countries in reopening its embassy in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, as part of a rapid and controversial upgrade in its dealings with the Islamist group’s regime.
India is hosting the Taliban’s de facto foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, for a landmark visit to New Delhi, and Muttaqi held meetings with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Friday.
Mr Jaishankar announced that India’s embassy, closed after the group seized power in Kabul in August 2021, would reopen. India had launched a downgraded “technical mission” in Kabul earlier in June 2022.
“India is fully committed to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of Afghanistan,” Mr Jaishankar said in his opening remarks in New Delhi as he hosted the senior Taliban leader. “Closer cooperation between us contributes to your national development, as well as regional stability and resilience.”
Mr Muttaqi is one of a number of Taliban leaders facing UN sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, and his visit to Delhi had to be specially approved by the UN Security Council. That process delayed his visit to India, which was originally scheduled for August this year.
He was first sanctioned by the UN in 2001 over the abuses committed by the Taliban in Afghanistan during the hardline Islamist group’s previous rule in the 1990s.
The UN General Assembly has not recognised the legitimacy of the Taliban’s administration in Afghanistan, but a growing number of countries have resumed embassy operations and appointed ambassadors to Kabul, including China, Russia, Pakistan, the UAE, Indonesia and Japan.
