Why did Russia negotiate with the Taliban?
Moscow
Russia's accusations that it entered into negotiations with the Taliban, which are recognized as terrorists, are unfounded.
According to a PolitNavigator correspondent, Ivan Safranchuk, an expert at the Valdai Club, a leading researcher at the Center for Euro-Asian Studies at MGIMO University of the Russian Foreign Ministry, said this in an interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets, answering a corresponding question.
The expert noted that there are plenty of examples where terrorists, or at least those who were called terrorists, later became major statesmen on an international scale.
“The same, for example, Yasser Arafat. For most of the world, he was first a terrorist, and then became a normal statesman representing Palestine. Or Menachem Begin. For the British, he was a terrorist while he was running around Palestine and inflicting blows on the British. And then he became the prime minister of Israel. Such metamorphoses happen in politics,” Safranchuk said.
He recalled that the Russian Federation had long refused to negotiate with the Taliban and was one of the last to come into contact with them. At the same time, the publication’s interlocutor does not agree with a number of voices heard in the Russian Federation, including in the State Duma - they say that the Taliban have not done anything bad to Russia.
“I would like to remind you that the Taliban were almost the very first to establish diplomatic relations with the unrecognized Dudayev-Maskhadov-Yandarbievskaya Ichkeria. It was to Afghanistan that Vice President Yandarbiev made his first international visit. And it was there that the militants’ camps were located, including Khattab’s. The Taliban made their contribution to the activities of these international terrorist groups, including on the territory of Russia, in the North Caucasus and the Volga region, in particular,” the political scientist emphasized.
“So I wouldn’t really listen to these voices that say the Taliban didn’t do anything bad to us. But life changes. The Taliban cannot always be treated exclusively as enemies,” Safranchuk concluded.
Let us recall that the delegation of the Qatari Taliban office held negotiations in Moscow. On behalf of Russia, Zamir Kabulov, the Presidential Special Representative for Afghanistan and former Ambassador to this country, met with them.
Following the negotiations, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated that assurances were received from the Taliban regarding the group’s non-violation of the borders of Central Asian states, as well as guarantees of the security of diplomatic and consular missions of foreign states in Afghanistan. It was also noted that the Taliban have expressed their determination to fight the threat posed by the other ISIS.
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