External affairs minister S. Jaishankar on Thursday spoke to the acting foreign minister of Afghanistan, Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi, on Thursday, making this India’s first publicised political contact with the regime in Kabul since the Taliban overran the country in August 2021.
“Good conversation with acting Afghan foreign minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi this evening. Deeply appreciate his condemnation of the Pahalgam terrorist attack. Welcomed his firm rejection of recent attempts to create distrust between India and Afghanistan through false and baseless reports. Underlined our traditional friendship with the Afghan people and continuing support for their development needs. Discussed ways and means of taking cooperation forward,” Jaishankar said in a post on X.
The false reports Jaishankar referred to in his post were unverified claims of Indian firing during Operation Sindoor hitting Afghanistan also. There is, however, still no word on whether India plans to resume diplomatic ties with Afghanistan anytime soon.
The previous highest level contact with the Taliban regime was when foreign secretary Vikram Misri met him in Dubai in January, capping a series of engagements — mostly kept under wraps — Indian officials have had with their counterparts in Kabul since mid-2021. India, like most other countries, has not yet recognised the Taliban but has been engaging with the regime to protect the stakes New Delhi has in the war-ravaged country.
While India has been slowly building ties with the Taliban regime over the last two years, relations warmed up in January after New Delhi sided with Kabul in its stand-off with Pakistan over Pakistani airstrikes in the Afghan province of Paktika purportedly to target the terrorist organisation, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.
After the fall of Kabul, India provided humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan through UN agencies operating in the strife-torn country and has maintained a technical team at the Indian embassy since June 2022.
1 million repatriated
The Pakistan government has said approximately 1.3 million Afghan refugees have been repatriated in a deportation drive since November 2023. Parliamentary secretary Mukhtar Ahmad Malik on Wednesday provided the update while talking to the Associated Press of Pakistan.
With additional inputs from PTI