India Conducts Regional Security Meeting on Taliban With Seven Nations

Iran’s top national security council secretary, Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani, Russia’s Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, and the security council chiefs of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan also attended the meeting, which was led by the Indian NSA. The meeting was claimed to be in “best interests” by Taliban leadership in Kabul.

The Taliban leadership in Kabul claimed on Wednesday that India’s convening of the first regional forum on Afghanistan was in its “best interests” and that “its soil will never be used against any nation.”

In an audio statement issued hours after the Regional Security Talk on Afghanistan, chaired by National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval, concluded its deliberations, the Taliban regime’s spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid said, “Though we are not present in this meeting, we firmly believe that this event is in the best interests of Afghanistan as the entire region is courteous of the existing Afghan position, and the countries involved must be thoughtful of this.”

Iran’s top national security council secretary, Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani, Russia’s Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, and the security council chiefs of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan also attended the meeting, which was led by the Indian NSA. Following the meeting, the security officers met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

The conference on Wednesday is India’s first regional summit on Afghanistan since the Taliban took control of the nation on August 15.

Apart from the “great optics and dynamics,” a participant in Wednesday’s deliberations highlighted that the regional meeting brought forth a lot of consensus in opinions. “I believe it was a huge success,” the official stated. 

Following that, the Taliban issued a statement reiterating its desire to enhance mutual cooperation with nations in the region. “We have no objections or concerns about the meeting being conducted in India, and we are hoping that the conference’s beneficial findings would be used and implemented,” Mujahid added.

After the meeting on Wednesday, NSA Ajit Doval met with his counterparts from Iran, Kazakhstan, and Russia to discuss the situation in bilateral intelligence sharing.