The first relates to India’s expanded options in the context of the changing geopolitics within the Middle East as they relate to Afghanistan. [...] The third observation relates to the challenges involved in constructing a new political settlement in Afghanistan, which could work to India’s advantage by the hold-up of international recognition for the Taliban. [...] India’s Expanded Outreach in the Middle East: Enlarging Strategic Options In 1996, when the Taliban first took control of Kabul, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), together with Pakistan, were the only states to recognise the government it set up. [...] Now, in a marked realignment, Saudi Arabia has withheld recognition of the new Taliban regime in Kabul, while Qatar has been hosting Taliban elements in Doha since the 2010s, and in the run-up to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan even served as intermediary between the group and the United States. [...] India recognises the diplomatic necessity of some degree of engagement with the Taliban and has held both formal and informal talks with the group — the last formal talks being in September 2021 in Qatar — but it has concluded that Pakistan’s grip on the Taliban will remain into the near future.
- Pages
- 4
- Published in
- Singapore
