India non-committal on recognising new Afghan govt that Taliban is planning to announce soon

Though the Taliban is preparing to announce its government in Kabul, India on Thursday remained non-committal on recognising the new dispensation in Afghanistan, notwithstanding its recent engagement with the leadership of the militant organisation.

“It's not a matter of yes and no,” Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said when journalists asked him if India would recognise the new Afghan Government that the Taliban would announce soon.

“We are not aware of any detail or nature of what kind of government could be formed in Afghanistan.”

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He also played down the recent meeting between New Delhi’s envoy to Doha, Deepak Mittal, and Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, the head of the Taliban’s political office in the capital of Qatar.

“Let us just treat the Doha meeting for what it is...It’s just a meeting. These are very early days,” said the MEA spokesperson.

He apparently sought to drive home the point that Mittal-Stanekzai talks in the capital of Qatar on Tuesday should not be construed as a prelude to India recognising the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan and the new government the militant organisation was planning to announce soon.

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Mittal’s meeting with Stanekzai was New Delhi’s first publicly acknowledged engagement with the Taliban in 22 years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on August 26 told the leaders of the political parties that India would decide on its engagement with the new regime in Afghanistan after taking into account whether it would be born out of an inclusive and broad-based power-sharing arrangement or solely run by the Taliban.

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Bagchi on Thursday said that New Delhi’s priority was to evacuate Indian citizens, who were still stranded in Afghanistan. He said that Mittal conveyed to Stanekzai New Delhi’s concerns over the possibility of the territory of Afghanistan being used for terror attacks in India and received “a positive response”.

“Our main, primary and immediate concern is that the Afghan soil should not be used for anti-Indian activities or terror activities. This is our focus,” the MEA spokesperson told journalists in New Delhi.

New Delhi earlier signalled that it might recognise a new regime in Kabul with participation from the Taliban, if it was an “inclusive dispensation” with representation of all communities of Afghanistan, respected the aspirations of the children and voices and rights of women and promised not to allow anyone to use the country to export terror to other countries in the region and beyond.

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