Vladimir Putin has described Afghanistan’s Taliban as Russia’s trusted ally in its fight against terrorism.
The Russian president told journalists after meeting regional leaders in Kazakhstan that the ruling regime in Kabul could help the Kremlin fight ISIS-K amid a rise in terrorist attacks in Russia.
“The Taliban movement controls power in the country and in this sense, the Taliban are certainly allies for us in the fight against terrorism,” he said.
ISIS-K, the branch of Islamic State active mainly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, claimed responsibility for an attack on a concert in Moscow in March that killed 144 people, and an attack in Dagestan, southern Russia, last month that killed 20 people.
Putin’s statement is at odds with official Kremlin policy which still labels the Taliban as a terrorist regime.
But Temur Umarov, a fellow at the Carnegie Centre think tank, said that for the Russian leader this was a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.
“Since the Taliban is fighting ISIS-K it is seen as a partner,” he said.
Moscow has been quietly improving links with the Taliban for years, even supplying weapons secretly through back channels as it fought Nato forces.
This alliance has grown since the Taliban grabbed power in Afghanistan from the pro-West government after the US’s chaotic withdrawal in 2021.
Russian officials have said this year that they want to remove the Kremlin’s terrorist label from the Taliban and have invited Taliban delegations to Russia.
On Thursday in Astana, Putin explained that he wanted to normalise ties because the Taliban wanted to turn Afghanistan into a normal functioning state.
“Everything is stable, calm and goes according to certain rules,” Putin said of the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan.
But Afghan human rights activists disagree, saying sexual violence is rising in the country.
This week they leaked mobile phone footage of the gang rape in an Afghan jail of a woman anti-Taliban activist.
Since Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Afghanistan has become more important strategically for the Kremlin as it sits on a possible trade route south to important markets in Pakistan, India and Iran.
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Intigam Mamedov, a postdoctoral research fellow at Northumbria University and an expert on Afghan-Russian relations, said that Putin was an opportunist who wanted to take advantage of strained ties between the West and Muslim countries.
“The potential rapprochement with the Taliban is a sign to the Islamic world in particular, that, unlike the US, Russia is an ally that will not interfere in another country’s internal affairs or dictate its values,” he said.
The Kremlin has invested heavily in building a support base in Islamic countries since it launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, even hosting Hamas delegations after Israel’s military strikes into Gaza.
For the Taliban, Russian recognition of its regime as the rightful ruler of Afghanistan would bring important international kudos and also much-needed revenue flows.
“Economically, and politically, the Taliban needs to cooperate with Moscow, but this doesn’t mean the Taliban trust Russian officials and their official line,” said Mr Mamedov.
source: msn.com/taliban-regime-is-our-trusted-ally-against-terrorists-says-putin
