Last week saw an unusual diplomatic development led by India, when India’s top-ranking diplomatic officer, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri held a meeting with the Acting Foreign Minister of Afghanistan, Maulawi Amir Khan Muttaqi, in Dubai on January 8, 2024.

The meeting comes in the background of increasing Afghanistan-Pakistan tensions and many see this as India’s move to edge out Pakistan from the Afghanistan equation. But the fact is that India has never given-up on either Afghanistan or Taliban. In fact, though not at the diplomatic level yet unofficially Indian establishment has kept a line of communication open with the Taliban since their emergence on the Afghanistan’s political landscape in 1996 as Taliban 1.0.

Pragmatically, India has not ignored Taliban at all. In fact, at the Moscow Dialogue of 2017 and the Intra-Afghan Peace Talks of 2020 in Doha, Indian representatives were present, further India’s Ambassador to Qatar met Taliban representatives at their Doha office. In June 2022 Joint Secretary for Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran met key Taliban leaders paving the way for sending a technical team at the Indian embassy in Kabul. Subsequently, India allowed the Taliban to appoint a new Consul General in the Afghan Consulate in Mumbai.

The recent warming of ties between Kabul and New Delhi is not a sudden development but a result of quiet diplomacy since the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan and India began informal talks with the government.

While there might not be a formal recognition of the Taliban government by New Delhi, India has maintained a neutral and non-judgmental approach. Security........

© Kashmir Images