India's Afghanistan outreach points to emerging dynamics

New Delhi: External affairs minister S Jaishankar's phone call with Afghanistan's acting foreign minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi on Thursday night was the first engagement between ministers from India and Taliban since 1999, signalling a churning in regional geopolitics.

Recent engagements between India and Taliban, starting with foreign secretary Vikram Misri's meeting with Muttaqi this January, followed by an external affairs ministry delegation's visit to Kabul after the Pahalgam attack and Jaishankar's phone call signal emerging regional dynamics amid Pakistan's interference in both India and Afghanistan, said people familiar with India-Afghanistan relations.

The last such contact between India and Taliban (Taliban 1.0) took place when the then external affairs minister Jaswant Singh spoke to his Afghan counterpart Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil after the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 to Kandahar in December 1999.


The groundwork for India's highest-level outreach to the Taliban in about 25 years was laid through the opening of India's technical mission in Kabul and a visit by JP Singh - India's current envoy to Israel and earlier head of Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran division in the external affairs ministry - to Kabul.

The Taliban 2.0, seeking mainstream diplomatic ties with several countries, especially in Asia, has major expectations from New Delhi, particularly in areas like investment, development assistance and people-to-people ties. Taliban was quick to condemn the April 22 Pahalgam attack.