New Delhi: India is yet to take a decision on attending Russia’s second attempt to bring the Taliban and Afghanistan government on the same table to work towards a peace settlement.
The Russian foreign ministry announced that the second meeting of the ‘Moscow format’ talks on Afghanistan will be held next Friday (November 9).
“The President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, A Ghani, has decided to send a delegation of the High Peace Council of this country to the meeting. For the first time, a delegation of the Political Office of the Taliban Movement in Doha will participate in an international meeting of this level,” said the press release issued in Moscow on Saturday (November 3).
It added that invitations were sent to Afghanistan, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and the United States.
This is Moscow’s second effort to hold the regional forum with the Taliban in tow.
This August, Russia had declared that it will host the second round of the 11-party regional mechanism with Afghanistan, with the Taliban’s participation, on September 4. The press release had also said that the meeting would be co-chaired with Afghanistan.
The United States was the first to refuse the invitation, stating that the meeting was “unlikely to yield any progress” towards a settlement.
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More importantly, Afghanistan also declined. Their contention was that Taliban should first hold direct talks with the Afghan government, rather than sit together in a multilateral platform with other countries.
Just two days after the August 21 announcement, Russia postponed the ‘Moscow format’ talks indefinitely.
Since then, there have been intense talks over the last two months with frequent visits between Kabul and Moscow to resolve this Gordian knot.
While the Russian foreign ministry said that invitations have been sent to 11 countries, it didn’t indicate whether they have been accepted.
Official sources in New Delhi told The Wire that there has been “no decision yet” on India’s participation at the Moscow format talks.
While the Russian communiqué cited President Ashraf Ghani’s assent to Afghan participation through High Peace council, Afghanistan’s foreign ministry asserted that Kabul are still in discussions.
The Afghan news agency, Pajhwok, reported that the country’s foreign ministry was still in discussions with Moscow over the November 9 meeting.
“Our discussions are underway and we are working reach a result regarding participation in Moscow conference,” Afghan foreign ministry spokesperson Sibghatullah Ahmadi said on Saturday after the Russian foreign ministry announcement.
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As per reports, the Taliban has already indicated that its officials are ready to attend the talks in Moscow, just as they were willing in August.
He added, according to the Pajhwok report, that the Moscow meeting would not be effective if it went without Afghanistan’s participation.
Afghan government functionaries had been publicly displeased with Russia over its “support” to the Taliban, allegedly to aid the latter’s fight against the Islamic State in Khorasan (IS-K). Russia denied providing material support to the Taliban, but consider the IS-K to be a more serious threat.
India will likely gauge the level of Afghan participation before reaching a decision on Russia’s invitation for the talks.
Even in August, New Delhi had been in a dilemma on whether to attend a conference which would confer a certain international recognition to the Taliban vis-à-vis the Afghan government by virtue of sitting at the same table with foreign countries. But it did not have to take a decision as the talks were quickly postponed.
Since India has publicly supported an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned peace process, it would be difficult for New Delhi to attend the ‘Moscow format’ peace process, if there is no presence from Kabul.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported on November 2 that Russia had been “quietly” inviting a number of Afghan leaders to Moscow in the last two months.
The news agency quoted unnamed Afghan officials as stating that they were unhappy that Russia was pressing ahead with plans for the Moscow format talks.
“We requested Russia to cancel the summit because talking to the Taliban at multiple forums will further complicate the peace process backed by the US, but they rejected the request,” a senior Afghan official told Reuters.
The United States have held two rounds of direct talks with the Afghan Taliban, with the last attended by the US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in Doha on October 12.
The Afghan government has not been happy with one-on-one talks by foreign governments with the Taliban, as it leaves Kabul out in the cold and Taliban continues to refuse to start direct intra-Afghan discussions.
