New Delhi: India has agreed to provide material assistance to Afghanistan and promote the use of Iran’s Chabahar port after the first publicly acknowledged meeting between an Indian foreign secretary and a senior Taliban official since the group came to power in 2021.
Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri met Afghanistan’s Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs Amir Khan Muttaqi for the first time in Dubai Wednesday.
The meeting was a part of India’s continuing engagement with Afghanistan in recent months. While New Delhi does not officially recognise the Taliban regime in the Central Asian country, India has maintained a technical mission in Kabul.
“In response to the 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 two sides also discussed strengthening sports (cricket) cooperation, which is highly valued by the young generation of Afghanistan,” said the Ministry of External Affairs in a statement.
The statement added: “It was also agreed to promote the use of Chabahar port for supporting trade and commercial activities, including for the purpose of humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan.”
The meeting between Misri and Muttaqi Wednesday also saw India promising to consider engaging in “development projects” in Afghanistan in the near future in addition to humanitarian assistance. India had a number of active development projects in the country, which stopped after the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban.
The Taliban regime came to power in 2021, taking over the country in a swift military offensive after the pullout of US and other international troops. While India withdrew its diplomats at the time, it set up a technical mission in 2022.
New Delhi has so far dispatched around 50,000 MTs of wheat, 300 tonnes of medicines, 27 tonnes of earthquake relief, 40,000 litres of pesticides, 100 million polio doses, 1.5 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines, 1.2 tonnes of stationery kits, 500 units of winter clothing and 11,000 hygiene kits for drug de-addiction programmes to Afghanistan.
“Foreign Secretary underlined India’s historic friendship with the Afghan people and the strong people-to-people contacts between the two countries. In this context, he conveyed India’s readiness to respond to the urgent developmental needs of the Afghan people,” the MEA statement said.
In recent months, Indian officials from the MEA have held meetings with leaders of the Taliban. These meetings have been primarily led by J.P. Singh, joint secretary in charge of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.
India has consistently offered the use of Chabahar port to the Taliban regime. India and Iran signed an agreement last year for the operation of the port and it has been used by New Delhi to circumvent Pakistan in delivering aid to Kabul.
In November, Singh met with Afghanistan’s Acting Defence Minister Muhammad Yaqoob, offering the use of the port of Chabahar in Iran by the Afghan business community for the export and import of goods. Singh met with Muttaqi in March last year.
The meeting between Misri and Muttaqi comes days after India condemned the air strikes by Pakistan on villages in Afghanistan in which, the Taliban said, at least 46 civilians were killed. In a response to media queries Monday, New Delhi said, “It is an old practice of Pakistan to blame its neighbours for its own internal failures”.
On 24 December, the Taliban regime claimed that at least 46 civilians, including women and children, were killed in airstrikes by Pakistan. About four days later, the Taliban claimed that its forces targeted specific points near the Durand line—the heavily contested border between Kabul and Islamabad.
Pakistan claimed that it had targeted the militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has been using bases in Afghanistan to carry out cross-border attacks.
India has also promised to provide material support to the Taliban regime for the rehabilitation of refugees, who have been primarily expelled by Islamabad in the last couple of years.
Around half a million Afghan refugees were repatriated by Islamabad during the first phase of expulsions in 2023. Last year, Islamabad announced a second round of expulsions. In a filing in the Pakistani Supreme Court Tuesday, Islamabad said that 7,84,954 illegal foreigners including Afghans have been expelled from the country so far, according to media reports.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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