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India’s ambassador to Qatar has held talks with a top Taliban leader, the Indian foreign ministry said, the primary formal diplomatic engagement since the group took over Afghanistan.
The envoy, Deepak Mittal, met Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, the top of the Taliban’s political office, in Doha on Tuesday at the request of the Taliban, the foreign ministry said India has long had concerns about the Taliban due to the group’s close ties to archrival Pakistan. The foreign ministry said the 2 sides discussed the security of Indians left behind in Afghanistan.
Mittal also conveyed India’s fears that anti-India fighters could use Afghanistan’s soil to mount attacks, the foreign ministry said.
“The Taliban representative assured the ambassador that these issues would be positively addressed,” the foreign ministry said The talks come days after Stanekzai was quoted within the local press as saying that the Taliban wanted political and economic ties with India.
There was no immediate comment from the Taliban on the talks with the Indian envoy India invested quite $3bn in development add Afghanistan and had built close ties with the United States-backed Kabul government. But with the rapid advance of the Taliban, the Indian government was facing criticism reception for not opening a channel of communication to the group.
In June, informal contacts were established with Taliban political leaders in Doha, government sources told Reuters press agency . the large fear is that armed groups fighting Indian rule out Muslim-majority Kashmir will become emboldened with the victory of the Taliban over foreign forces, one among the sources said.
“Ambassador Mittal raised India’s concern that Afghanistan’s soil shouldn’t be used for anti-Indian activities and terrorism in any manner,” the foreign ministry said When the Taliban were last in power from 1996-2001, India along side Russia and Iran supported the Northern Alliance that pursued armed resistance against them.
Stanekzai, who Indian officials say received training in an Indian academy as an Afghan officer within the 1980s, had informally reached bent India last month, asking it to not pack up its embassy, the source said.
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