India has announced that they had the first formal diplomatic meeting with the Taliban on Tuesday. This is as a matter of fact the first official talk that the countries have had since the Taliban came into power. This is after the United States has completed withdrawing its forces from there. So obviously the first official talk was going to be a little tense as expected. In the world of politics, there is nothing that you can do about it.
The Indian foreign minister has said in a statement that the Indian ambassador of Qatar had gone ahead and met with the head of the Taliban, we mean the head of the political office of the Taliban. He is named Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai and the name of the Indian ambassador is Deepak Mittal. The Taliban are the ones that requested the meeting in the first place. They then conducted the meeting at an Indian embassy situated in Doha.
They both have got together and discussed the security and safety of the Indian nationals that are still there in Afghanistan. They also discussed the early return of the stranded Indians there and the talks also included the topic of the Afghan minorities that wanted to visit India.
The Indian ambassador has also taken the chance of this meeting and had raised the topic about New Delhi’s concerns around Afghanistan being used as a base for terrorism. “The Taliban Representative has gone behind his way to assure the Ambassador that these issues would be positively addressed,” the foreign ministry reported to the media in a statement.
A few days before this meeting had taken place there had been news that the Taliban still wants to continue the cultural ties with the Indian country as it had kept on being in the past. This was coming from a member of the Taliban and they spoke about it the first time after the capture of Kabul.
So what comes on next is yet to be seen. What are the plans between the two countries? Only time can answer that question with real honesty. Even amid the political instability, there are quite a lot of things to consider.
India’s meeting with the Taliban was considered to be that of a “necessity”. The sooner it was done the better for all the people and both of the Countries.
“There is a practical necessity behind the matter of engaging with the Taliban. It is now a given that it would be one of the most important political stakeholders in Afghanistan,” Pant told the media. And that is all.
