Peskov: Russia is conducting a dialogue with the Taliban, it must solve urgent issues with it

Commercial presentation Update: 2/04/2024 14:46
Issued by: 2/04/2024, 2:46 p.m

Moscow – Russia is conducting a dialogue with the Taliban movement, which rules in Afghanistan, and has a number of urgent topics to discuss with it, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today, according to the TASS agency. A day earlier, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that it was considering removing the Taliban from Russia’s list of terrorist organizations.

“It is a country that neighbors us. One way or another, we communicate with them (the Taliban). We have to solve urgent issues. For that, dialogue is needed,” said Peskov. He added that the Taliban effectively rules Afghanistan and that Russia communicates with it like virtually all countries.

Peskov did not specify what specific pressing issues Russia must discuss with the Taliban. But the Reuters agency reminded that in March Russia experienced the worst terrorist attack in the last 20 years, in which at least 144 people died. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. According to American intelligence, the Islamic State-Khorasan, i.e. the Afghan branch of this organization, is specifically behind the act. At the same time, the Islamic State is the main rival of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and after the Taliban seized power, it unleashed a wave of violence in the country.

Russia has led the Taliban on the list of terrorist organizations since 2003. The Afghan Taliban, on the other hand, does not appear, for example, on a similar American list.

The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021. It initially promised to act more moderately than under its previous government in the 1990s, but it is gradually restricting the rights of citizens, especially women. Afghanistan is struggling with an economic crisis, among other things, because a number of foreign organizations cut off humanitarian aid on which Afghanistan, as one of the world’s poorest countries, was heavily dependent after the radical movement came to power.

Afghanistan Russia diplomacy Taliban