The European Union held talks with Taliban officials in Brussels in June about returning failed asylum-seekers to Afghanistan, even as the United Nations described the country as a "graveyard for human rights" and warned of a "cascade of [Taliban] edicts and laws" that have crushed women, minorities, activists and journalists.
Brussels Talks, Kabul Rules
That meeting, the first such formal encounter since 2021, was downplayed by the European Commission as merely "technical" and focused on returns. The Taliban saw it differently. A Taliban spokesperson called it a historic visit and said it was a step towards regularising consular relations with EU countries. The gap between the Commission’s careful language and the regime’s triumphal reading says plenty. Brussels can call it technical all it wants; the people being sent back are the ones who live with the consequences.
Campaigners warned that individual contacts by different countries risk undermining "coherent, consistent" demands for an improvement in human rights in return for any diplomatic concessions. Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch, said: "We are not against any engagement ... There is a need for engagement even if just for aid agencies to mitigate the ongoing humanitarian crisis but we are worried about the end goal of these contacts and the discussions that are taking place." She added: "There should be a consistent and coherent message from the international community to the Taliban that they will not have any friends if they do not show real progress in terms of the women’s rights and human rights situation ... and that is not happening."
The facts on the ground are uglier than the diplomatic choreography. The United Nations said in March that Afghanistan had become a "graveyard for human rights." It pointed to bans on women from universities and most employment, the denial of teenage girls’ education and strict dress codes. Minorities have been persecuted, while activists and journalists face repression. The Taliban are not hiding this. They are governing through it.
Fortress Europe Wants Its Returns
The new contacts stem from a combination of regional security concerns, pressure in the west to reduce illegal immigration and a general recognition that the Taliban are unlikely to be forced from power in the foreseeable future. That is the real engine here: not principle, not rights, but border management and political convenience. The EU apparatus, which likes to speak in the language of values, has been talking to the Taliban about returns while the regime continues to strip away basic freedoms.
Shivam Shekhawat, at the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi, said: "There is no doubt there has been an evolution. The Islamic emirate is now in a confident position. They have realised they are indispensable for regional countries right now and even with Europe and the US they have identified how to engage." He added: "The Taliban see any kind of contact as a diplomatic win and they have been able to capitalise on that as a sign granting legitimacy to the regime."
That logic is spreading. India, Qatar, China, Iran and several central Asian states have recently welcomed Taliban officials or opened new channels of communication. Russia, which recognised the Taliban government in Kabul just over a year ago, signed a military cooperation agreement last month. Britain says it pursues a policy of "limited and pragmatic" engagement with Taliban officials, largely through the UK Mission to Afghanistan based at the British embassy in Qatar. Discreet meetings with the Taliban have also repeatedly been held by other western countries in Qatar.
Recognition, Trade and the Usual Deals
This year officials from Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have all visited Kabul or other Afghan cities, seeking trade routes and pipeline deals that would allow their landlocked countries access to seaports or third countries beyond. India has moved to reinforce relationships that were frosty after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 2021, in part to exploit new tensions between the movement and Pakistan. New Delhi secured a sanctions waiver last year so that Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban foreign minister and a veteran official who has spent decades at the heart of the movement, could travel there.
In June, India’s UN envoy Harish Parvathaneni suggested a rethink was necessary on sanctions, such as travel bans, asset freezes and arms embargoes, that target dozens of Taliban members. He said: "The political reality of Afghanistan has changed in the last five years, and the current UN sanctions regime must take that into account."
Afghan authorities’ diplomatic strategy has involved hosting envoys in Kabul, including those from China, Japan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Last year, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, made the first visit by an Iranian foreign minister to Kabul for almost a decade. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan "seeks relations with all countries," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said, though "the countries of the region and our neighbouring states have particular importance, because our economic ties and interests are closely linked."
Natural resources are another lure for overseas powers. Kabul has expanded the mining sector, attracting firms from neighbouring China and elsewhere. Taliban officials have also sought cross-border infrastructure projects to boost the country’s fragile economy and diplomacy. The language changes. The deals don’t.
Analysts do not believe the Taliban are likely to moderate their position in the near future and point to the continuing authority of Hibatullah Akhundzada, the reclusive and authoritarian cleric leader. The Taliban are split, with deep disagreements on the ban on women’s education among other issues, but remain dominated by the most conservative factions. Recent laws have further reinforced repression, designating many religious minorities, including Shia Muslims, as heretics and imposing strict punishments to silence dissent. Other new laws recognise only "excessive" beating as domestic violence against women and facilitate the marriage of girls without their consent.
Ramin Mansoori, a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Endowment who studies Afghan politics, said the Taliban’s priority was its domestic agenda. He said: "They are not going to make any significant concessions. Most of them don’t have an international perspective."
The Brussels apparatus can call it technical. The Taliban call it legitimacy. The people trapped between them get the same old order: borders enforced, rights denied, and power negotiating over their lives as if they were just another file on the desk.