For a country whose government is not recognized by any country, Afghanistan’s proxy Amir Khan Muttaki has had an unusually busy calendar in recent weeks.
He hosted a counterpart from Pakistan, spoke on the phone with the Indian Foreign Minister, and set up a pier on Iran and China. In Beijing, he also met Pakistan’s Foreign Minister again. On Wednesday, he participated in a trilateral meeting with Pakistan and China’s delegation.
This is currently tense with Pakistan, despite the dominant Taliban historically having tense relations with most of these countries.
Neither the United Nations nor its member states officially recognize the Taliban, but analysts say the diplomatic overdrive suggests that the movement is far from pariah at the global stage.
So why are multiple Afghanistan neighborhoods queueing to engage diplomatically with the Taliban, avoiding formal awareness?
We unravel the Taliban’s latest high-level regional involvement and consider why India, Pakistan and Iran are trying to become friends with Afghanistan rulers four years after marching in Kabul to take power.
Who has Muttaqi met or talked to in the last few weeks?
Afghanistan’s recent diplomatic engagement timeline:
April 19: Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishak Dal travel to meet Muttaki and other Afghan officials with a high-level delegation to Kabul. The Afghan Foreign Ministry said the two sides discussed the ongoing spat on Afghan refugees, bilateral trade and economic cooperation repatriation. May 6: Dar and Muttaqi retell what turned out to be the eve of India’s attack on Pakistan, leading to a four-day missile and drone attack between two nuclear-armed neighbors. A fire exchange occurred, killing 26 people after India accused Pakistan of being involved in the Pahargam attack in India-controlled Kashmir on April 22. May 15: Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar holds a telephone conversation with Muttaqi and expresses his gratitude to Taliban for condemning the attack on Pahalgam. May 17: Muttaki arrives in Iran’s capital, Tehran, attends Tehran’s dialogue forum, and also holds a meeting with Foreign President Abbas Aragich and President Masoud Pazeshkian. May 21: Muttaqi visits Beijing. The trilateral talks between Afghanistan, Pakistan and China are aimed at increasing trade and security between the three countries.
The Taliban political office head in Suhail Shaheen’s Doha stated that the group is “the reality of Afghanistan today.”
“The countries in the region know this fact and therefore are involved with the U.S. Islamic Emirates at various levels, which in my view is a practical and rational approach,” he told Al Jazeera, referring to the name the Taliban refers to the current state of Afghanistan.
“I believe that it is through involvement that we can find solutions to the problem,” he added, arguing that the official recognition of the Taliban government “will not be further delayed.”
“Our area has unique interests and goals that we should adhere to.”
Why is India warming up to the Taliban?
It’s an unlikely partnership. During the Taliban’s first rules between 1996 and 2001, the Indian government refused to engage with the Afghan group and did not recognize their rules that were only permitted by the then Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
India, which supported Mohammad Najibla’s former Soviet-backed government, closed its embassy in Kabul when the Taliban came to power. The Taliban saw it as an agent of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, which supported the Mujahidien against Moscow.
Instead, New Delhi supported the Northern Alliance, an anti-Taliban opposition group.
Following the US-led oustermination of the Taliban in 2001, India reopened the Kabul Embassy, becoming Afghanistan’s key development partner, investing more than $3 billion in infrastructure, health, education and water projects, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
However, the embassy and consulate were subjected to repeated fatal attacks from allies, including the Taliban and Hakkani groups.
After the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, New Delhi evacuated the embassy and once again refused to recognize the group. However, unlike during the first stint when the Taliban came to power, India has established diplomatic contacts with the group.
The logic was simple, according to analysts, and found that India had influenced Afghanistan on regional rival Pakistan by refusing to engage with the Taliban before.
In June 2022, less than a year after the Taliban returned to power, India reopened its Kabul embassy by deploying a team of “technical experts.” In November 2024, the Taliban appointed acting consul at the Afghan consulate in Mumbai.
Then, last January, India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Mithri and Muttaki both flew to Dubai for a meeting.
Kabir Taneja, deputy director of the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, said that for India, “what the political reality of Kabul is set in Kabul is by no means an option.”
“No one is happy that the reality is the Taliban,” Taneha told Al Jazeera. However, India’s “decades of” efforts to nurture goodwill with the Afghan people have faced challenges since the Taliban acquisition, but they have not been completely reverted.
“Even the Taliban ideological hub, Darul Uloom Deoband Theological Seminary is located in India,” he added. “These are connections between the country and its actors, and it needs to be dealt with in a realistic way, realistic way,” he added.
What is Pakistan’s calculus?
Pakistan, one of the leading supporters of the Taliban from 1996 to 2021, has seen its relationship with the group in recent years.
Since the Taliban acquisition in 2021, Pakistan has seen a surge in violent attacks. This is due to armed groups in which Islamabad is the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Pakistan claims that the TTP is run from Afghan territory and blames the Taliban, which rules the Taliban for allowing sanctuaries – allegations denied by the Taliban government.
The Pakistan Taliban emerged in 2007 amid the so-called “war on terrorism” led by the US. Unlike the Afghan Taliban, the two are considered ideologically consistent.
Rabia Ahtar, director of the Centre for Security, Strategy and Policy Studies at the University of Lahore, said that the DAR visit to Kabul and subsequent communication with Muttaqi represent a “tactical ad hoc thawing” rather than a major change in relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
During the recent India-Pakistan crisis, she suggested that Islamabad is increasingly concerned about the possibility that Afghanistan would allow New Delhi to use its territory against Pakistan. “This has increased the urgency to secure the western border of Islamabad,” Akhtar told Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s decision to expel Pakistani refugees earlier this year — including many who spent most of their lives in Pakistan — and frequent border closures disrupt trade.
In particular, refugee questions could prove to be an important factor in shaping future relations between the two countries, Akhtar said.
“Pakistan is seeking the repatriation of undocumented Afghans, but Kabul views such deportation as punitive,” she said. “If this dialogue is a sign of both sides’ perceptions that conflict is unsustainable, it is a good sign, especially amidst changing regional integrity and economic pressures.”
Taliban Shaheen said that Kabul wanted a good relationship with Islamabad, but they “returned and back” and that the “slam game” was not in anyone’s interest.
“We have taken practical steps as far as it relates to us,” he said. Afghanistan said it had begun building checkpoints “to prevent anyone from crossing along the lines adjacent to Pakistan.”
“But their internal security is the responsibility of the security forces, not our security.”
China said at a trilateral meeting in Beijing on Wednesday that Kabul and Islamabad agreed to upgrade their diplomatic relations in principle and would send their respective ambassadors the earliest.
Nevertheless, Akhtar does not expect “leave soon” and “central mistrust” over his two neighbors, especially the suspicious TTP reserve.
“Look at this change as part of Pakistan’s broader crisis management after the India’s Pak crisis, rather than as a structural reconciliation,” Akhtar argued.
What does Iran want from its relationship with the Taliban?
Like India, Tehran refused to acknowledge the Taliban when it was first in power.
Iran had gathered thousands of troops at its eastern border and intended to go to war with the Taliban over the incident.
Concerned about the widespread US military footprint in the region since 9/11, Iran is said to be quietly involved with the Taliban, providing limited support to counter the influence of the US and protecting its own strategic interests.
Since the Taliban reclaimed the country’s reins almost four years ago, Iran has once again shown an eagerness to develop relationships with Kabul’s rulers on many security, humanitarian and trade-related issues, analysts say.
Shaheen, the Doha Taliban office head, said both Iran and India previously thought the group was “under Pakistan’s influence.”
“Now they know that it’s not real. Given the reality of this ground, they have adopted a new, realistic, practical approach that is good for everyone,” he said.
Ibraheem Bahiss, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, said Muttaqi and Iranian President Pezeshkian’s meeting showed no “immediate official recognition.” However, he said the “practical considerations” drove Iran to engage with the Taliban given its “critical interest” in Afghanistan.
“In terms of security, Tehran hopes that its allies will include ISIS [ISIL] Local branch. Tehran is also looking to expand its trade ties with Afghanistan and is now one of its main trading partners,” he told Al Jazeera.
In January 2024, a twin suicide bombing at Carman marked one of Iran’s most deadly attacks in decades, killing at least 94 people. The Islamic State of Horasan (ISKP), a derivative of ISIL based in Afghanistan, has argued for responsibility.
In recent years, the ISKP has also emerged as a key challenge to the Taliban rule, which has carried out several well-known attacks across Afghanistan.
Bahis added that Tehran not only needs “are happy partner” to address the issue of Iran’s roughly 780,000 Afghan refugees, but also needs to deal with “a massive water flowing from the Helmand River.”
In May 2023, tensions flare between the two neighbors, leading to a border conflict in which two Iranian border guards and a Taliban fighter plane were killed.
The violence comes after former Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi warned the Taliban not to violate the 1973 treaty by limiting the flow of water from the Helmand River to Iran’s eastern region. The Afghan Taliban ruler denied the charges.
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