Shortly before the visitors arrived, a strange protest began to unfold outside the Afghan embassy in the Indian capital. A young Afghan man stomped out of the building with a flagpole.
He was later reportedly joined by six others. “I won’t let them raise the flag while I’m around,” the Afghan, an embassy worker, told local media. He asked to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions back home.
Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban's U.S.-sanctioned foreign minister, probably wouldn't have noticed as he set out to reshape alliances in the region even before tensions escalated on Sunday with Pakistan, a common enemy of the two countries.
Muttaqi's visit marked the first high-level diplomatic engagement between Delhi and the Taliban since the US withdrew from Kabul four years ago. Taliban security forces said they killed 58 Pakistani soldiers and captured army posts along the border on Sunday in response to repeated violations of their territory and airspace. Pakistan says it killed more than 200 Taliban and affiliated soldiers in response.
For Afghan authorities, Sunday's attacks were a response to Pakistan's alleged bombing of a market in its eastern Patika province and drone strikes on Kabul last week. These attacks likely targeted Noor Wali Mehsud, the leader of the “Taliban of Pakistan,” the TTP, a group Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of harboring.
Pakistan blames the TTP for a rise in attacks on its security forces as well as terrorism across the disputed border, the British-mandated Durand Line, which Afghanistan has never recognized.
Islamabad has called on Kabul to stop hosting the TTP on its territory.
A Pakistani soldier patrols the Durand Line in Chaman, Pakistan
AKHTAR GULFAM/EPA
Pakistan's Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi on Sunday called the Taliban's border attacks “unprovoked” and warned that the military would respond “with a stone for every brick.”
There is no indication that Delhi, Pakistan's arch-rival, was involved in the attacks, but for India, seeing Islamabad embroiled in a conflict with a country with which it is becoming increasingly friendly is not necessarily a bad thing.
“An Afghanistan that is hostile to Pakistan and friendly to India is certainly strategically useful,” said Happymon Jacob, founder and director of the Council for Strategic and Defense Research in Delhi.
During a bilateral meeting between Muttaqi and Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Friday, India announced plans to expand its technical mission in Kabul into a full-fledged embassy.
Parked vehicles belonging to Afghan citizens after Pakistan closed border crossings with Afghanistan on October 12
SAEED ALI ACHAKZAI/REUTERS
Muttaqi's visit is a milestone. It signals a deepening of relations between the two nations despite historical differences. If India were to officially recognize the Taliban, it would be the first country besides Russia to do so. “I think we are not yet satisfied with the formal recognition,” said Bhashyam Kasturi, a former director of India’s National Security Council Secretariat. “But this is a step in that direction.”
At the meeting at the embassy, women were excluded from taking part in a press conference at the request of the Taliban. Nayanima Basu, journalist and author of The fall of Kabulsaid: “Those who went to the embassy gates were shunned.”
Priyanka Chaturvedi, an Indian lawmaker, said: “This is the biggest shame for the women of India.”
The Taliban later downplayed the “technical problem” and announced that they would hold another press conference, this time inviting women.
Muttaqi's visit comes in the context of historically tense relations between Delhi and Kabul. In the past, the Taliban have supported militants who have attacked India, such as the hijacking of passenger flight IC 814 in 1999, which led to the fatal stabbing of a male hostage and ultimately a hostage-prisoner exchange deal.
A Taliban security officer receives a paper on which the IC 814 hijackers wrote their demands
SAEED KHAN/GETTY IMAGES
Kasturi said: “I think the past weighs heavily on India because it recognizes that it has paid quite a heavy price with the Taliban – even when other governments were in power in Kabul. Our embassies have been attacked, our missions elsewhere. We have lost lives. So a certain degree of caution is required in whatever we do with the Taliban.”
However, since August 2021, India's involvement in Afghanistan has increased. The first major turning point came in January – a meeting between Indian Foreign Minister Vikram Misri and Muttaqi in Dubai. Muttaqi's current visit follows a positive conversation in May following the Pahalgam terror attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, which the Taliban condemned. This suggests that Delhi is confident that the Taliban are here to stay, at least for now.
A candlelight vigil in Indian-administered Srinagar denouncing the Pahalgam terror attack
NAZIR/GETTY IMAGES
For India, normalizing relations with Afghanistan is a national security-driven imperative. At the center is India's desire to combat its vulnerability to cross-border terrorism from Pakistan – a wound that has remained fresh since the Pahalgam attack. Kasturi said: “Pakistan has caused us problems – and they have had serious problems with Afghanistan and that is ongoing at the moment. So to keep them off balance, it helps us to pay more attention to Kabul.”
Deepening ties with India are putting the Taliban back on the world stage.
India also has a strategic interest in Afghanistan, having invested nearly $3 billion in aid and reconstruction there before the Taliban captured Kabul in 2021.
“The government had to establish a working relationship with the Taliban to get these projects back on track,” Kasturi said. “It’s not recognized – but we built the Afghan parliament, for example.”
What is crucial is that India is competing with Beijing for influence in Afghanistan. China became the first country to appoint a full ambassador to Kabul in 2023 and is building a road from the border to the sensitive Wakhan region of Afghanistan.
Russia, which has recognized the Taliban, is also vying for influence. India hopes to act as a counterweight to China and Russia, which threaten to capitalize on the void left by the West. Geographically, Pakistan also poses a barrier to India's trade with Central Asia. “If India and Afghanistan were to pressure Pakistan to grant access to Central Asia, that would be a huge trade potential for the Indian and Afghan sides,” Jacob said.
India finds itself in a precarious balancing act. It must protect its interests and national security in a region that is increasingly turning toward China, without forgetting its own difficult history or straying too far from international consensus on the group's record on women's rights.
“We have to be guided by pragmatic politics and not ideology,” said Rakesh Sood, the former Indian ambassador to Afghanistan. “It is good that we have moved to a more pragmatic approach because our geographical location determines our commitment.”
Kasturi added: “No one will come tomorrow and topple the Taliban from power. You have to somehow work around it and find ways to do business with them.”