Please refer to the attached files.
Even as many diplomats shun the Taliban regime, protesting its treatment of women and girls, emissaries of countries near Afghanistan have sought dealings with Kabul in areas like security and commerce. It is a worthwhile endeavour, and the West should not stand in the way.
What’s new? The Taliban, mostly isolated by Western powers, are looking to build ties with foreign capitals closer by. These countries cannot simply say no: they must deal with the Taliban on security and economic issues. Regional engagement remains limited, however, due to both mistrust and hurdles raised by Western sanctions.
Why does it matter? Dysfunction in the relationships between Afghanistan and its neighbours affects lives and livelihoods across South and Central Asia. Kabul and its regional partners should explore ways of expanding trade, managing disputes over water and other shared resources, and combating transnational militancy. Failure could spell instability in a vast area.
What should be done? Instead of retreating from the many challenges of dealing with the stubborn Taliban, regional capitals should continue to develop a clearly defined format for broad-based security cooperation and economic integration. Western countries should support such efforts – or, at a minimum, refrain from blocking them.
Executive Summary
As most of the world shuns the Taliban due to their violations of women’s and girls’ rights, countries in the region around Afghanistan are dealing with the regime to address their needs for security and economic stability. This region, as the Taliban broadly define it, spans the “Eurasian continents”, from China in the east to Türkiye in the west and from Russia in the north to India and the Gulf monarchies in the south. It encompasses countries closer in, such as the Central Asian states, Iran and Pakistan. The Taliban, like previous Afghan rulers, view Afghanistan as a bridge connecting all these places. Regional countries’ policies toward the Taliban vary enormously, though all believe contacts with the regime to be necessary, but so far, their engagement is limited. Kabul and its regional partners are struggling to develop a modus vivendi as regards issues of mutual concern, which range from boosting trade to managing disputes over water and halting transnational militancy. It is a fraught endeavour, but a worthwhile one, and Western capitals should not stand in the way.
The Taliban’s denial of basic rights to Afghan women and girls and their imposition of draconian social rules since returning to power in August 2021 has sabotaged, at least for now, the chances that the UN and other international bodies might recognise their regime. Yet even as Western diplomats cancelled meetings with the Taliban, regional actors sought more dealings with Kabul. Some have condemned the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls, particularly bans on girls’ secondary and higher education, but overall regional officials tend not to put emphasis on women’s and girls’ rights. At the same time, they are convinced that the best way to secure their countries’ interests and moderate the Taliban’s behaviour in the long term is patient deliberation with Kabul, rather than ostracism. Channels between Kabul and regional capitals appear to offer the Taliban their best hopes for diplomatic engagement in the coming years.
Still, regional collaboration has fallen short of what some of Afghanistan’s neighbours wanted. Some were aspiring to a “grand bargain” that would have traded diplomatic recognition for Taliban action to form a more inclusive government, particularly by empowering Afghan politicians whom they had sponsored in opposition to the Taliban in the past and with whom they remain friendly. The Taliban, however, rebuffed all attempts to coax them into including former enemies in the cabinet. Most regional players have therefore settled for piecemeal engagement with Kabul that addresses specific issues on a case-by-case basis. More by necessity than design, this approach aligns with the Taliban’s own preference for transactional relationships that avoid the prospect of what they perceive as foreign meddling in Afghan affairs. Taliban talking points about respect for diverse cultural values and alternatives to the “Western-imposed” global order also chime with the interests of those regional powers.
At the top of the regional agenda are matters related to security. Regional officials have observed Kabul’s novel methods of controlling Islamist militant groups with varying degrees of scepticism and anxiety. After the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan’s neighbours feared that violence would spill across their borders to hotspots like Indian-administered Kashmir or the Fergana Valley in Central Asia. Those concerns proved to be exaggerated; as the Taliban firmed up their hold on the country, militancy did not spread. The major exception is Pakistan, where attacks by the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) climbed during the Taliban’s first two years in power, significantly raising tensions with Islamabad. The Taliban have used a standard playbook for answering regional concerns about nearly all militant groups: Kabul refuses to kill or capture suspected militants. Instead, it relocates them, helping them establish new lives in an effort to curb their ambitions and break down their command structures.
The first step toward better regional security cooperation could be cooling down the rhetoric on all sides and getting actors to agree on a set of facts, even if they have different priorities. Taliban forces have got better at corralling the most dangerous jihadists, those loyal to Islamic State Khorasan Province (IS-KP), but even in that case the Taliban have not built enough confidence with regional partners to share information freely. Part of the problem is the gap between how Kabul prefers to deal with most of the Islamist militant groups in Afghanistan and how the region would like Kabul to deal with them. Overcoming this divide requires building a common platform for discussing regional security concerns and a common approach to addressing challenges. All sides would benefit from improved border management, customs integration and demarcation of Afghanistan’s rugged frontiers.
The other main area of regional cooperation is economics. Decades of war in Afghanistan shelved ideas of multiplying trade corridors to rival the Silk Routes of old, but these began to regain currency as the Taliban’s military victory brought greater stability and the de facto authorities started tackling corruption. Regional capitals are now seeing glimmers of commercial opportunity. They are dusting off plans to get trucks, railcars, gas and electricity moving across borders. The Taliban are impatient to start work on such projects, though some of the barriers will be insurmountable in the short term.
The logic for better regional economic connectivity is overwhelming, especially in the energy sector where Central Asian countries are in search of new markets while South Asia needs new supplies of oil, gas and electricity. Equally importantly, the region has strategic reasons to encourage ventures in Afghanistan as part of long-term planning for economic integration, which in turn would help with regional stability. Some regional actors think building Afghanistan into the regional economic architecture could increase regional influence, placate detractors of diplomacy among the Taliban and make the de facto authority a more predictable entity. Many among the Taliban, for their part, see such integration as a path to greater prosperity for Afghanistan and greater longevity for their regime.
Still, a multitude of factors inhibit economic cooperation between Kabul and the region. Economic restrictions and sanctions continue to stifle private investment. The desire of some donor states to limit aid to humanitarian assistance, and attempts by some to block development aid altogether, also contribute. The limited resources of some regional countries, coupled with inability to attract external financing, also impede serious economic collaboration between Afghanistan and the region. Equally importantly, the lack of a legal framework in Afghanistan continues to undermine private-sector confidence in the country, particularly as the Taliban embark on a cryptic ad hoc overhaul of laws they inherited from the government they overthrew.
Some of the Taliban’s actions, including building water infrastructure without coordination with downstream countries, have also engendered tensions with Afghanistan’s neighbours, particularly Iran and Uzbekistan. Disputes have occasionally contributed to skirmishes between the Taliban and neighbouring countries’ forces. In such a febrile atmosphere, regional states might be tempted to scale back their ambitions for engagement with the Taliban. Doing so, however, would likely make it still harder to resolve such problems and put solutions to other challenges neighbours face in Afghanistan further out of reach.
Many steps toward regional cooperation do not involve Western donors, but those countries have a stake in the results. Europeans, especially, would benefit from a stable, self-sufficient region that is not a major source of illegal drugs, migrants or terrorism. Yet sanctions and other measures originating in the West that aim to signal disapproval of the Taliban are obstacles on the road to more functional relations between Kabul and regional capitals. Whether it is a vote at the World Bank on a water project, or permission to send equipment to Taliban border guards despite sanctions, much progress depends on Western support – or at least, acquiescence. While such practical steps should not imply recognising the Taliban regime, they would contribute to regional peace and security.
Kabul/Brussels, 30 January 2024