{"id":1539221,"date":"2025-06-01T03:20:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T07:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1539221"},"modified":"2025-06-01T03:20:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-01T07:20:00","slug":"the-taliban-is-back-in-the-international-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/the-taliban-is-back-in-the-international-spotlight\/1539221\/","title":{"rendered":"The Taliban Is Back In The International Spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Taliban Is Back In The International Spotlight<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Al Jazeera recently published a\u00a0detailed piece<\/a>\u00a0about how India, Pakistan, and Iran are all nowadays wooing the Taliban, which is true, but they left out how Russia and China<\/strong> are as well while also making no mention of the newfound pressure that the US is placing upon the group.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the order that they were mentioned, Indian <\/strong>External Affairs Minister Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar held an\u00a0historic call<\/a>\u00a0with his Afghan counterpart in late May, the first between officials of their level in over a quarter century.<\/p>\n

He thanked him for condemning April\u2019s Pahalgam terrorist attack that led to the\u00a0latest Indo-Pak conflict<\/a>\u00a0and for not falling for fake news meant to stir trouble between them. They also discussed expanding bilateral ties. India and Afghanistan have shared threat perceptions of Pakistan, the first due to the Kashmir Conflict and the second as regards Islamabad\u2019s alleged attempts to subordinate Kabul. Closer cooperation between them thus advances their interests but prompts deep suspicion from Pakistan.<\/p>\n

Segueing into that country\u2019s interests, Pakistan <\/strong>accuses Afghanistan of harboring terrorist groups, which the Taliban denies. The improvement of their ties upon alleviating their resultant security dilemma could pioneer a\u00a0Central Eurasian Corridor<\/a>\u00a0from Pakistan to Russia and beyond. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi\u00a0organized a meeting<\/a>\u00a0between their top diplomats in Beijing in late May to that end, but it\u2019s unclear whether any tangible progress will be achieved. Mutual mistrust might ultimately prove insurmountable.<\/p>\n

Moving along to Iran<\/strong>, that country had long-standing tensions with the Taliban over water rights and migration, but its Foreign Minister\u00a0just visited<\/a>\u00a0Tehran in an attempt to help resolve them. Whether or not that happens is another story, but Iran has an interest in sincerely doing so due to the newfound pressure that the US is placing on the Taliban, which will be touched upon later on in this analysis. The point is that ties appear to be thawing, and at the very least, tensions might remain manageable for now.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s ties with Afghanistan sharply contrast with Russia<\/strong>\u2019s, which recently removed the Taliban\u2019s terrorist designation, just hosted a delegation at the recent Russia-Islamic World Forum in Kazan where they\u00a0signed several agreements<\/a>, and has a grand geo-economic vision for Afghanistan that was detailed\u00a0here<\/a>. The aforesaid overlaps with Pakistan\u2019s earlier mentioned connectivity plans, which partially explains their\u00a0rapprochement<\/a>\u00a0in recent years and could\u00a0position Russia to mediate<\/a>\u00a0between it and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

On that topic, China <\/strong>is already mediating as was written above, but Russia objectively seems to be closer to the Taliban nowadays than they are given the latest agreements that were just signed. In any case, China is poised to play a major role in Afghanistan\u2019s reconstruction, though continued security threats stemming from ISIS-K appear to have thus far hampered the implementation of its plans. Nevertheless, these plans still remain in place, and it\u2019s possible that they could be speedily implemented in the future.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s precisely what the US wants to prevent, however, thus explaining the newfound pressure that it\u2019s placing upon the Taliban through Trump\u2019s demand to reobtain control over Bagram Airbase and Rubio\u2019s implied\u00a0threat to redesignate<\/a>\u00a0the group as a \u201cForeign Terrorist Organization\u201d (possibly only if it refuses). Pakistan\u2019s possible collusion with the US will be pivotal in determining what happens. If the US succeeds, then it could\u00a0reshape South Asian geopolitics<\/a>, much to India\u2019s detriment and possibly also China\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Given the renewed interest that major stakeholders \u2013 India, Pakistan, Iran, Russia, China, and the US \u2013 have in Afghanistan, the Taliban\u2019s return to the international spotlight might portend a new era of cooperation and competition between them. <\/strong>The main variable is whether or not the Afghan-Pakistani security dilemma is soon alleviated and on what terms if so, such as Eurasian-mediated (Russia and\/or China) or American-coerced, which will in turn place these dynamics on very different trajectories.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSat, 05\/31\/2025 – 23:20<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/taliban-back-international-spotlight<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Taliban Is Back In The International Spotlight Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack, Al Jazeera recently published a\u00a0detailed piece\u00a0about how India, Pakistan, and Iran…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1539222,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1539221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1539221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1539222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1539221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1539221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1539221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}