Moscow:
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the Taliban, a group banned in Russia, is Russia’s “ally” in the fight against terrorism because it controls Afghanistan.
Despite the Taliban being banned in Russia since 2003, Moscow has long nurtured ties with the group and last month Putin called on Moscow to “build” ties with the Taliban regime.
“We have to assume that the Taliban holds power in the country, and in this sense they are naturally our ally in the fight against terrorism, because any authority has an interest in the stability of the state over which he rules,” Putin said in Astana.
The Taliban have been fighting a rival jihadist group in Afghanistan, the Islamic State of Khorasan (IS-K), for many years.
In March, IS-K militants stormed a Moscow concert hall, killing more than 140 people, in Russia’s deadliest terrorist attack in two decades.
Since taking over Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban have implemented a radical version of Islamic law that effectively bans women from participating in public life.
Putin said the Taliban had “assumed certain responsibilities” but that there remained “problems that require constant domestic and international attention.”
“I’m sure the Taliban want all of Afghanistan to be stable,” he added.
Moscow has improved ties since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which has a complicated history since the Soviet invasion in the 1980s.
But it has stopped short of officially recognising the Taliban government and the so-called “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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