Sept 3, 2021: India’s ambassador to Qatar spoke to a senior Taliban leader on Tuesday, with the Indian foreign ministry saying it was the Taliban’s first formal diplomatic engagement with India since occupying Afghanistan.
Ambassador Deepak Mittal met with Sher Muhammad Abbas Stanikzai, head of the Taliban’s political office in Doha, at the request of the Taliban, the foreign ministry said. The Foreign Ministry said the two sides discussed the safety of Indians remaining in Afghanistan.
Mittal also voiced India’s concern that anti-India militants could use Afghan territory for attacks, the foreign ministry said.
The Taliban representative assured the ambassador that the issues would be resolved positively, the foreign ministry said. The remarks came just days after Stanikzai was quoted in the local media as saying that the Taliban wanted positive political and economic ties with India.
The Taliban did not immediately comment on the talks with Indians.
India invested more than $3 billion in development work in Afghanistan and had built close ties with the United States-backed Kabul government. But with the rapid advance of the Taliban, the Indian government was facing criticism at home for not opening a channel of communication with them.
In June, informal contacts were established with Taliban political leaders in Doha, government sources said. The big fear is that groups fighting Indian rule in occupied Kashmir will become emboldened with the victory of the Taliban over foreign forces, one of the sources said.
“Ambassador Mittal expressed India’s concern that Afghanistan’s territory should not be used for anti-India activities and terrorism in any way,” the foreign ministry said.
When the Taliban were last in power from 1996-2001, India, along with Russia and Iran, supported the Northern Alliance, which put up armed resistance against them.
Sources said Stanekzai, who Indian officials say was trained as an Afghan officer at an Indian military academy in the 1980s, had approached India informally last month and told him not to close the embassy.
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