Russia's important move towards diplomatic relations with the Taliban: Bill approved in Parliament

 Legislation in the lower house would pave the way for removing the Taliban from the terrorist list. Report

Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Moscow (News International News - 11 December 2024) Russia has taken another step towards recognizing the Taliban government of Afghanistan, with parliament voting in favor of a law that would allow the Taliban to be removed from Moscow’s list of banned terrorist organizations. According to the Russian broadcaster, the lower house of parliament, the Duma, has approved the first of three necessary bills in this regard. No country currently recognizes the Taliban government, which seized power in August 2021 when US-led forces withdrew from the country in chaos after 20 years of war.

But Russia is gradually building its ties with the Taliban, which President Vladimir Putin said in July were now “our allies in the fight against terrorism.” Moscow sees militant groups in countries from Afghanistan to the Middle East as a major security threat, where Russia lost a key ally this week with the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In March, gunmen killed 145 people in an attack on a concert hall outside Moscow that was claimed by the Islamic State group. US officials said they had intelligence indicating that the group’s Afghan branch, ISIS Khorasan (ISIS), was responsible. Western diplomats say the biggest obstacle to the Taliban government gaining wider international recognition is the group's conservative stance on women's rights. The Taliban have closed high schools and universities for girls and women and have restricted their movement without a male guardian.

They say they respect women's rights under their interpretation of Islamic law. Russia has its own complex and bloody history in Afghanistan. Soviet troops invaded the country in December 1979 to prop up a communist government, but they failed in a protracted war against the mujahideen. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev withdrew his troops in 1989, by which time some 15,000 Soviet soldiers had been killed.