Taliban says India willing to send humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan

For the first time, India's serving diplomats took part in conclave attended by Taliban

The Taliban on Wednesday claimed that India was ready to provide humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, where an acute food crisis was unfolding with nearly 14 million people facing starvation.

Two senior diplomats of the government attended a meeting hosted by Russia in Moscow. The meeting was also attended by the officials of Pakistan, China and Iran, in addition to representatives from the new dispensation the Taliban set up in Afghanistan. New Delhi’s representatives also had a separate meeting with the delegation of the Taliban.

This was the first such occasion when serving diplomats of India attended a plurilateral meeting with attendance of the leaders of the Taliban, which returned to power in Afghanistan a couple of months back through a swift blitz across the country, taking advantage of the withdrawal of troops by the United States and its NATO allies.

“The Indian envoy to the Moscow Format meeting said that the people of Afghanistan need humanitarian assistance, Afghanistan is going through a difficult situation. India is ready to provide humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan,” the Taliban’s spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, posted on Twitter.

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The government officials in New Delhi, however, did not confirm or deny the Taliban spokesperson’s tweet.

The TASS news agency quoted Russian President’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, stating that the participants of the meeting in Moscow on Wednesday called on the United Nations to convene an international conference of donors on providing socio-economic assistance to the war-ravaged country.

India had sent two retired diplomats to attend a conference hosted by the Russian Government in Moscow in 2018. A delegation of the Afghan Taliban had also attended the conference in the capital of Russia. India had also sent its ambassador to Qatar to attend the ceremony that marked the signing of the US-Taliban deal in Doha in February 2020.

New Delhi also had some back-channel engagements with the Taliban over the past few months before the militant organisation returned to power in Kabul. Finally, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on August 31 for the first time publicly acknowledged its engagement with the Taliban as New Delhi’s envoy to Doha had a meeting with Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, the head of the militant organisation’s political office in the capital of Qatar.

Though PM Modi himself called out the Taliban’s interim government in Afghanistan for lack of inclusivity, his government has been considering supporting the UN and its World Food Programme in responding to the crisis in Afghanistan. The WFP has also been discussing with Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government in Islamabad the possibility of the consignment of wheat donated by India being transported to Afghanistan through Pakistan.

Even before the Taliban took over Kabul, a humanitarian crisis was already unfolding in Afghanistan, as a result of continued conflict, severe drought, Covid-19 pandemic, failing health system and economic slowdown. It worsened after the government of President Ashraf Ghani collapsed on August 15 and the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan through a swift military blitz taking advantage of the withdrawal of troops by the United States and its NATO allies. The WFP estimated that one in every three Afghans had already been facing severe hunger and now 95 percent of families were not consuming enough food. The conflict-ravaged country is on the brink of economic collapse, with the local currency at an all-time low and food prices on the rise.

“Acute malnutrition is above emergency thresholds in 27 out of 34 provinces, and is expected to worsen, with almost half of children under five and a quarter of pregnant and breastfeeding women needing life-saving nutrition support in the next 12 months,” the WFP stated in a global appeal for support for Afghanistan. It estimated that it would urgently need US $ 200 million to help people in need across Afghanistan between now and the end of the year.