Russia is currently not considering recognizing the Taliban regime, but is actively working with the new Afghan rulers. The Kremlin is de facto negotiating with terrorists, given that in 2003 Moscow designated the Afghan movement a terrorist organization. What’s behind Russia’s decision to host another summit on Afghanistan?
Russian officials invited the Taliban, China, and Pakistan, as well as the United States, to join talks on the future of Afghanistan on October 20. The meeting will follow a G20 summit on the war-torn country that took place on October 12, and that reportedly sought to help the nation avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in the wake of the Taliban takeover.
After Moscow, on October 27 Tehran will host another meeting of Afghanistan’s neighbors plus Russia. Official delegations from China, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan – countries that have land borders with Afghanistan – are expected to come to the Iranian capital to discuss the future of “the graveyard of empires”. Unlike Russia, Iran has refused to participate in any talks hosted or participated in by the United States, which it says was a main cause of instability and violence in the country. The Kremlin seems to share Tehran’s point of view, given that the Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said that the United States’ involvement in Afghanistan has led to tragedy. Such rhetoric, however, did not prevent Russia from inviting the US delegation to Moscow, just like the Kremlin’s decision to designate the Taliban as a terrorist organization did not prevent Russian officials from holding meetings with the Afghan group.
The first contact between the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Taliban was established back in 2015. Ever since, Russia has held several summits with “the Afghan terrorists”. In July, the Taliban representatives even held a media conference in Moscow, and the Kremlin hosted another international conference on Afghanistan in March. In the meantime, the United States and its allies have withdrawn their troops from Afghanistan after 20 years of occupation, and the Taliban seized power in Kabul. Unlike many Western countries, Russia did not close its embassy in the Afghan capital. To this day, contact between the Taliban and Moscow is being conducted via the Russian Embassy in Kabul and Putin’s special representative for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, is playing an active role in this process.
Recently, however, Kabulov warned that Moscow would not exclude revising the UN sanctions regime against the Taliban. Such a statement could be interpreted as Russia’s warning to the new Afghan rulers. On several occasions, the Kremlin has voiced concerns about the potential instability the Taliban’s rule could bring to the wider region. Russia also fears a possible Islamist militant infiltration from Afghanistan to the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, which Moscow views as its strategic allies. Three Central Asian nations, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, are members of the Russia-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Founded in 1992, the CSTO is often described as a Russian version of the NATO, whose members are similarly bound by the “an attack on one is an attack on all” pledge. That is why Russian officials stressed that Moscow would provide assistance to Tajikistan in case of a potential incursion from Afghanistan.
Tajikistan is Afghanistan’s smallest neighbor and the poorest country in Central Asia. As such, it represents a relatively easy target for the Taliban. Still, the Afghan group is unlikely to attack a CSTO member as it would have a serious impact on relations with Russia. The Taliban official position is that it wants to establish good ties with Moscow.
“Afghanistan has been destroyed during the war. Russia and other countries could help rebuild it. We welcome such help and look forward to financial support”, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said, pointing out that the self-proclaimed Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan wants to establish strong economic cooperation with Russia.
The Kremlin, on the other hand, wants a firm guarantee that there will be no dissemination of radical Islam in Central Asia. Indeed, during the 1990s, Mujahideen from Afghanistan took an active part in conflicts in the post-Soviet space, from Nagorno Karabakh to the Russian republics of Chechnya and Dagestan. That is why there are fears in Russia that a potential destabilization of Central Asia might open the door for new security threats for the Russian Federation.
“In a number of Afghan provinces there are remaining cells of the international terrorist organization ISIS-Khorosan, which still poses certain threats to the region. Moreover, there is also a threat of terrorist and extremist elements, disguised as refugees, penetrating into neighboring countries”, said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov.
The Taliban tends to position itself as an Afghan national organization that seeks to build a regime similar the one in Saudi Arabia but, at this point, the group does not seem to be interested in exporting its own ideology abroad by force. Russia and its allies, however, do not take the Taliban’s word for that. That is why CSTO recently held its largest military drills near the Tajik-Afghan border. It was another message to the Taliban ahead of the Moscow summit where the new Afghanistan rulers sent Abdul Salam Hanafi, who is seen as one of the weakest political figures in the country. That is one of the reasons why a breakthrough in Moscow format talks is very unlikely, but the Kremlin will certainly use the meeting to portray itself as a regional leader.
Image credit: Patrick Tsui/FCO
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