Amidst a growing number of reports that India will accept a Taliban-appointed diplomat to head the Afghanistan Embassy in Delhi, speakers at a conference of prominent Afghan exiles here urged New Delhi to not “normalise” its engagement with the regime in Kabul. The reports carried by Afghan media, citing Taliban Foreign Ministry officials as well as international news agency Bloomberg, followed weeks after India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri met with the Taliban’s ‘acting’ Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai on January 8. This is the highest-level engagement the Indian government has conducted with the Taliban since the latter took power in Kabul in August 2021.
In November 2024, New Delhi accepted a Taliban-approved nominee, Ikramuddin Kamil, as ‘Acting Consul General’ in Mumbai. If India were to allow a Taliban-appointed nominee to head the Afghanistan Embassy in Delhi, it would join other countries, including China, Pakistan, Russia, Iran, the UAE, Qatar and Central Asian states, while at least 16 countries, including Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, France, and several other European capitals, have rejected the Taliban’s nominees, and still host Ambassadors of the Afghan Republic.
Speaking to The Hindu at the Herat Security Dialogue in Madrid organised by the Afghanistan Institute of Strategic Studies, which is now based in London, former senior officials and diplomats cautioned against any such move.
“This shift [would] mark a stark departure from India’s historical stance and undermine its credibility as a nation that has long condemned terrorism in all forms. The Afghan people expect India to uphold its own stated foreign policy of making no distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ terrorists, demonstrating a principled and consistent approach rather than one driven by short-term geopolitical calculations,” former Afghan Ambassador Ashraf Haidari said. Mr. Haidari is the founder and president of Displaced International, an agency advocating for the rights of those forcibly displaced by conflict.
Mr. Haidari, who was also Afghanistan’s Deputy Chief of Mission in New Delhi and then Ambassador to Sri Lanka in the pre-Taliban era, has been critical of India’s decision to engage with the Taliban while refusing visas to Afghans, including thousands of students who gained admission to universities in India.
“India has effectively abandoned the Afghan people, choosing instead to align with a terrorist network responsible for deadly attacks on Indian personnel and assets in Afghanistan,” Mr. Haidari told The Hindu.
When asked about the possible move, India’s former Ambassador to Afghanistan, Jayant Prasad, who too attended the Herat Security Dialogue, said India had “done well” to engage the Taliban, as it was the “de facto authority” and connection to the Afghan people. However, he stressed that the government “should not provide legitimacy to the Islamic Emirate at a time it has refused political dialogue to create an inclusive government, and is engaged in the persistent and systematic oppression of women and minorities”.
According to reports carried by Amu TV, Indian officials are “close to finalising an agreement” for two Taliban-approved officials to manage the affairs at the Afghanistan Embassy in Delhi, which has been in limbo for more than a year.
Thus far, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has maintained that any reports suggesting that a Taliban-appointed head of mission would be received by South Block were “hypothetical”. “We do not comment on hypothetical comments, situations, and developments,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, when asked at the weekly briefing last Friday.
Officials told The Hindu that even if the Taliban appointee were accepted, New Delhi would insist on a nominee with a previous association with India, and would not allow the Taliban’s flag, but retain the black, red and green tricolour of the Afghan republic.
According to former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker, India and other countries are taking “practical steps” in order to retain some engagement with the Taliban regime, but this should not lead to a recognition of the regime itself. “If a country recognises the Taliban regime, they would be endorsing the legitimacy of the Taliban regime and its abhorrent actions, and that is a step the international community must not take,” Mr. Crocker said, speaking at the Herat Security Dialogue.
In November 2023, the last accredited Ambassador of the Afghan Republic, Farid Mamundzay, resigned his post and said he was “closing” the Embassy, citing lack of support from the MEA. Subsequently, the MEA asked the Consul Generals of Afghanistan in Mumbai and Hyderabad, who engaged with the new Taliban regime, to oversee the embassy and a small number of Indian staff.
The officials cited in the Amu TV report indicated one of the names being considered is Najib Shaheen, who presently works in the Taliban-run embassy in Doha, and is the son of Taliban leader and Ambassador to the UAE, Sohail Shaheen.
(The correspondent covered the Herat Security Dialogue at the invitation of the Afghanistan Institute of Strategic Studies.)
Published – February 25, 2025 05:42 pm IST