Understanding Taliban’s Diplomacy And Its Implications For The Region – Analysis
On 21 August 2024, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) envoy to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) formally presented his credentials to Abu Dhabi. Badruddin Haqqani was appointed as the Taliban’s envoy to the UAE in October 2023 and became the second Taliban diplomat to be formally accepted by a country. In January, the Chinese President accredited its Taliban envoy in a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People.
While the UAE did not organise a grand ceremony like Beijing, and the envoy was received by the Assistant Under Secretary for Political Affairs, the Taliban Foreign Ministry’s statement did hint at an impending ceremony that would happen at a later date. Notwithstanding this, the action is a diplomatic win for the Taliban and comes against the backdrop of the IEA completing three years in power.
Pragmatism over other considerations?
The UAE was one of the three countries that formally recognised the first iteration of the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate (1996-2001), along with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Even as the country reduced its diplomatic presence in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the 2017 attack on its ambassador and supported the United States’s (US) efforts during the ‘war on terror’, it has been incrementally engaging with the group. It reopened its embassy in September 2021 and, in 2022, an Abu Dhabi-based firm GAAC Solutions won the deal to manage all ‘on-ground operations’ at the three airports in Kabul, Kandahar and Herat. Both Qatar and Türkiye were expecting to receive the deal as a preliminary deal was reached with them in the beginning of 2022. Ultimately the final contract was signed during the visit of IEA’s Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abul Ghani Baradar to the country in September 2022. AirArabia and FlyDubai also resumed flights to and from Kabul.
Emirati leaders have been meeting senior Taliban leadership since their return to power. A week before the accreditation of the envoy, the President, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan met IEA’s Acting Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund who was visiting the country for medical reasons. In June, Sheikh Nahyan met Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Acting Interior Minister of the IEA and the two discussed steps to safeguard mutual interests and maintain stability in the region. For Abu Dhabi, having a relationship with the Taliban is important for multiple reasons—for its competition with Qatar and Doha’s increasing influence in post-withdrawal Afghanistan, and its concerns about terrorism. Thus, it is leveraging the current scenario to expand its influence in the country.
Simultaneously with these diplomatic advancements, the Prime Minister of Uzbekistan visited Afghanistan with a 12-member delegation on August 17, the first such high-level visit by any foreign country. The two sides held several meetings and signed 35 agreements worth US$ 2.5 billion. As per the Taliban’s official media arm, the Uzbek Prime Minister also showed an inclination to formally receive the Taliban’s envoy in Tashkent and invited them to the country. This development comes against the backdrop of the near consistent engagement between the Taliban and the Central Asian Republics (CARs) on matters related to economic and security interests and connectivity initiatives in the region.
Balanced and economic foreign policy
The Taliban’s official news channel, Al Emaharah, regarded the UAE’s decision as a ‘formal acknowledgement’ of the IEA, which would further bolster their efforts to gain wider international recognition and legitimacy. Since 2021, the international community’s approach to pressure the Taliban into moderating its policies, by reducing aid or strictly enforcing sanctions, has failed to bring any change in the group’s worldview. Concurrently, the Emirate has established a sound working relationship with most countries in its neighbourhood and beyond. While there is still a major dichotomy between the degree of exchanges between the regional countries and countries in the West, there has been a reluctant acceptance of the inevitability of engaging with the group in at least some form. As per Aaron Zelin, who mapped the number of engagements between the IEA and representatives from other countries, between August 2021 and 22 February 22 2024, the IEA participated in close to 1382 meetings with around 80 countries, with most of them being promoted on their social media handles.
On August 15, the group marked three years of their return to power in Afghanistan and organised a parade at the Bagram Air Base. Members from the group carried guns as well as displayed their military assets and capabilities with the weapons and military vehicles left behind by the US paraded at the ceremony. Speeches by Taliban officials saw the assertion of Afghanistan’s independence from external interference and foreign occupation and the stabilising influence of the Taliban’s return, urging the diaspora to return to the country. In this grand celebration, which saw the participation of close to 10,000 people, there was no mention of the country’s women or the difficulties that the people are facing. It was aimed at showcasing to the outside world the power that the Taliban holds at the moment—their relative strength vis-a-vis their first year in power.
Since their return, the group has given immense importance to their foreign policy and their outreach to the external world. They frame it in terms of their ‘economic diplomacy’ and claim to follow an ‘economy-oriented and balanced foreign policy.’ Last year, during their annual Accountability sessions, in which different ministries give an account of the work that they did in the previous year, the Emirate’s Acting Foreign Minister highlighted the importance of working with countries with whom they have mutual economic interests, even though there may be pre-existing political differences. They perceive economic diplomacy as a ‘tool of legitimacy’, both internally and externally.
Their public posturing on the one hand derides the West for its negative propaganda and its corrupting influence; and on the other hand, they urge the international community to increase economic partnerships with them for Afghanistan’s development. This policy is aimed at fostering good relations with everyone and preventing Afghanistan from becoming a space for ‘negative’ competition. But cloaked in this economic packaging, the Taliban’s basic approach towards the outside world hinges on two facets—leveraging the concerns of different countries, mostly security-related, to their advantage, and using that to establish an economic relationship with them and creating more space for them to implement their regressive policies at home.
Dealing with an assertive Taliban
The Taliban’s participation in the third Doha conference in lieu of women and civil society groups, their decision to bar the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, Richard Bennett, from Afghanistan, and their directive to diplomatic missions in Europe that are still under Republic-era diplomats that they won’t accept passports, visas or other documents issued by these missions—all show the group’s growing assertiveness. Even as de jure recognition would still remain the group’s long-term goal, the current status quo has given it the space to strengthen its hold on the country and present a public picture of diplomatic strength.
At the last Accountability session held in 2023, on being asked about why countries have not recognised their government, Muttaqi highlighted his lack of understanding of what recognition means. He stated that if the opening of embassies, exchange of diplomats, issuance of visas and passports, visits by delegations and trade relations between two countries could be counted under recognition, then they have been recognised by certain countries. This deliberate ambiguity allows the group to ignore the demands made by the international community on inclusive governance, women’s rights and freedom, etc, in exchange for recognition while flaunting that their increasing engagement with the world is because of their deft diplomacy.
Conclusion
In the following months, we can expect some other countries to also accredit the Taliban’s diplomats and enhance trade and economic cooperation with the group. The concerns about security will predominate all other concerns for the regional countries and they will try to integrate the group more and more in the regional process to ensure stability by hedging their bets and staving off the growing terror threat. For the people of Afghanistan, particularly the women, a regime which is becoming increasingly more insulated against international pressure will steadily clamp down on the rights and freedom of groups it deems inferior. This is evidenced by the recent ratification of the virtue laws passed by the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which infringes on the private lives of individuals and intends to regulate everyday actions of both women and men—a testament of how bad things look in the country for the common Afghans.