India’s foreign secretary meets Taliban minister for first time in Dubai
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The meeting was part of the Indian side’s continuing engagement with the Taliban regime in Kabul, which New Delhi doesn’t formally recognise.
New Delhi: India pledged to provide support to Afghanistan for the health sector and for rehabilitating refugees as foreign secretary Vikram Misri met the Taliban’s acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi for the first time in Dubai on Wednesday.
Foreign secretary Vikram Misri meets the Taliban’s acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai on Wednesday. (Image posted on X by @MEAIndia)
The meeting was part of the Indian side’s continuing engagement with the Taliban regime in Kabul, which isn’t formally recognised by New Delhi. India’s engagement with the Taliban leadership has largely been handled by the foreign ministry’s pointperson for Afghanistan, JP Singh, and this was the first officially acknowledged meeting between the foreign secretary and a senior Taliban leader.
In response to a request from the Afghan side, India will “provide further material support in the first instance to the health sector and for the rehabilitation of refugees”, the external affairs ministry said in a readout on the meeting.
“The Afghan side underlined its sensitivities to India’s security concerns,” the readout added without giving details.
People familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity that India continues to have security concerns related to the presence in Afghanistan of a large number of fighters from Pakistan-based terror groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). The Indian side has in the past urged the Taliban to ensure that Afghan soil is not used by any anti-India elements, the people said.
The readout said the two sides discussed issues related to bilateral ties and regional developments and agreed to promote using Chabahar port in Iran to support trade and commercial activities, including humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.
An Indian state-run firm operates a terminal at Chabahar port, which is emerging as a key trade and transshipment hub. Last year, India and Iran signed a 10-year agreement for Indian operations at the port, which India has used in recent years to bypass Pakistan while transporting humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.
Misri underlined India’s “historic friendship with the Afghan people” and the strong people-to-people contacts between the two countries, and conveyed “India’s readiness to respond to the urgent developmental needs of the Afghan people”, the readout said. The two sides also discussed the strengthening of sports cooperation, especially in cricket.
The two sides assessed ongoing Indian humanitarian assistance programmes, and Muttaqi thanked the Indian leadership for “continuing to engage and support the people of Afghanistan.” The readout said that in view of the need for development activities, India would “consider engaging in development projects in the near future” in addition to ongoing humanitarian assistance programmes.
India stopped working on a range of development projects in Afghanistan that were funded through grants and soft loans after the Taliban took over Kabul in mid-2021. At the time, India also removed all its diplomats from Afghanistan. In 2022, it re-established a presence in Kabul by sending a “technical team” to the embassy.
As part of its humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, India has dispatched several shipments, including 50,000 tonnes of wheat, 300 tonnes of medicines, 27 tonnes of earthquake relief aid, 40,000 litres of pesticides, 100 million polio doses, 1.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, 11,000 units of hygiene kits for a drug de-addiction programme, 500 units of winter clothing and 1.2 tonnes of stationery kits.
The readout said the two sides agreed to remain in touch and continue regular contacts at various levels.
Prior to the meeting between the foreign secretary and the Taliban minister, India’s contacts with the regime in Kabul were largely handled by JP Singh, joint secretary of the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran division in the external affairs ministry. In November, Singh had met the Taliban’s acting defence minister Mohammad Yaqoob for the first time. Yaqoob, the son of Taliban founder and late supreme leader Mullah Omar, had not publicly interacted with Indian interlocutors in the past.
The meeting in Dubai came two days after India condemned Pakistan’s recent air strikes in Afghanistan that killed dozens of civilians, and said Islamabad has often sought to blame neighbouring countries for its “own internal failures”. The said air strikes by Pakistan on December 24 killed at least 46 civilians, including women and children.
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