Nikolai Bobkin, political scientist

            Institute US and Canadian Studies

named after academician G.A. ARBATOV

The development of the situation in Afghanistan is an integral theme in the course of events under the auspices of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Work in this format is supplemented by meetings of the secretaries of the security councils of the countries of the region, the fifth meeting of which was held on February 8 in Moscow. The meeting was attended by representatives from India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Russia was represented by Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev.

After the withdrawal of US and NATO troops last year, Russia understands that it has a role to play in securing this troubled region. Moscow seeks to mediate between the new authorities in Kabul and the world in order to keep Afghanistan on the global agenda. This approach gave the meeting participants the opportunity to discuss the current situation in detail in the hope of closer coordination that will help bring Afghanistan out of the current crisis. The event also allowed the meeting participants to hold a series of bilateral meetings to discuss the most pressing issues.

Today, Kabul has the first government in 40 years to control the entire country without direct foreign support. The victory of the Taliban (banned in the Russian Federation) brought relative calm to Afghanistan, as the number of victims in most of the Afghan territory decreased in late 2021, but pockets of violence that threaten greater instability remain.

There is both change and continuity in the Russian approach to the Taliban. Moscow’s perception of Afghanistan as a potential source of threats to itself and its Central Asian neighbors remains the same. This is unlikely to change as long as Moscow continues to view Afghanistan as a source of instability.

The assassination of al-Qaeda leader Zawahiri on July 30 last year in the center of Kabul in a house belonging to one of the leaders of the Taliban speaks of the Taliban’s continued ties with other terrorist groups. These include al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups with regional or global ambitions that have historically enjoyed the protection of the Taliban. On the one hand, the Taliban seek to contain them, on the other hand, they are afraid of provoking them to fight the government. This precarious balance shows the contradictions in the Taliban’s attitude towards the global jihadists and the desire to achieve international recognition.

There are other obstacles to the recognition of the Afghan Taliban government. Moscow is interested in working with them in terms of the security guarantees they can provide, not the group itself. Russia does not offer to consider granting legitimacy to the Afghan Taliban authorities, but is urging Afghan neighbors to reach out to the new rulers in Kabul to help solve humanitarian problems.

The already severe humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan worsened after the return of the Taliban to power. The United Nations estimates that more than half of Afghanistan’s 40 million people are suffering from acute hunger and are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. The assistance provided by international organizations does not correspond to the humanitarian needs of the country. The Russian position finds understanding. The meeting participants agreed that a peaceful, stable and economically viable Afghanistan is vital to their security. Although there are differences in the approaches to the Taliban government.

Thus, China is doomed to play an important role in Afghanistan. The main concern of the Celestial Empire here has always been security. Beijing’s fears are that the country will become a springboard from which Uyghur militants will threaten stability in Xinjiang. Although the Taliban continue to say that they will not allow their country to be used as a base for military action against others, it is clear that Uyghur fighters continue to remain there. In the report of the Group of UN Observers last autumn it was reported that their number could be 500-700 people.

India is also interested in the stability of Afghanistan in order to prevent the penetration of militants from its territory into the Indian-controlled region of Kashmir to incite terrorism. India went to the interaction with the Taliban government. A group of officials from the Foreign Office visited Kabul last summer to oversee the delivery of Indian aid.

Some analysts see Delhi’s first official contacts with the Taliban government in the context of geopolitical rivalry with Pakistan. The Taliban victory was seen by many as a strategic benefit for Islamabad, which was thought to have closer ties to the Taliban. But it’s less clear now that Islamabad has the upper hand in Afghanistan.

Disagreements between Pakistan and the Taliban have escalated over disputed territories and cross-border activities by militants of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (banned in Russia), a terrorist group linked to the Afghan Taliban. At the same time, Islamabad is dealing with a deepening economic crisis, which means that it is unable to help Afghanistan as much as India.

Afghanistan’s Central Asian neighbors are generally pragmatic in building relationships with the Taliban. For them, the deteriorating situation in northern Afghanistan poses a direct threat. The scale of these fears has not diminished. Today there is a need to create a security belt along the borders of Central Asia with Afghanistan. At the same time, the positions of various countries of the region regarding Kabul differ. For example, Tajikistan remains a harsh critic of the Taliban. Dushanbe insists on forming a government that is not monopolized by the Taliban and represents the Tajik population of Afghanistan.

Tashkent became the key interlocutor with the Taliban. Uzbekistan is the cornerstone of the SCO’s strategic plans to connect Central and South Asia. We are talking about the construction of a 760-kilometer railway from Mazar-i-Sharif to Peshawar and a 245-kilometer Surkhon-Puli-Khumri power line, which would allow establishing communication between the regions. These projects are now more important than ever. Sanctions against Russia and Belarus against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Ukraine make northern transport corridors difficult and risky for Central Asia.

With all the nuances in the subjective approaches, the results of the meeting of the secretaries of the security councils of the countries of the region confirmed the obvious fact of the unanimity of all participants in the desire to prevent the insecurity that has always haunted the Afghans from becoming a common disaster for the entire region, and demonstrated the understanding that only the collective efforts of Afghanistan’s neighbors can bring sustainable peace and stability to that country.