The Taliban regime in Afghanistan is breaking free from diplomatic isolation as major powers across Europe, Asia and the Middle East restore contacts with Kabul — despite systematic repression of women and minorities that the United Nations has called a "graveyard for human rights." Five years after seizing power through brutal insurgent warfare, the hardline Islamists are leveraging regional security concerns and European migration pressures to secure recognition without meaningful concessions on freedoms.
Russia recognised the Taliban government just over a year ago and signed a military cooperation agreement last month. India secured a sanctions waiver last year allowing Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban foreign minister, to travel to New Delhi. Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, made the first visit by an Iranian foreign minister to Kabul for almost a decade last year. In June, the European Union held talks with Taliban officials in Brussels about returning failed asylum-seekers to Afghanistan — the first such formal encounter since 2021.
The Diplomatic Shift
Individual European countries have deepened their own contacts with Kabul beyond the Brussels meeting. In Germany and at least four other western European capitals, key consulates are now controlled by the Taliban, not representatives of the former Afghan government. Britain pursues what it calls "limited and pragmatic" engagement 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.
Shivam Shekhawat, at the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi, said there's no doubt there's 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 said. "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."
Officials from Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have all visited Kabul or other Afghan cities this year, seeking trade routes and pipeline deals that would allow their landlocked countries access to seaports or third countries beyond. Afghan authorities have hosted envoys in Kabul from China, Japan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. China, worried about Islamic militancy on and around its south-western borders, has welcomed Taliban officials in recent years and hosted talks when Afghanistan and Pakistan went to war earlier this year.
The Human Rights Cost
The UN described a recent "cascade of [Taliban] edicts and laws" that have banned women from universities and most employment, denied teenage girls education and imposed strict dress codes. Minorities have been persecuted, while activists and journalists face repression. Afghanistan became a "graveyard for human rights," the UN said in March.
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.
Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch, said there's 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 said. "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."
Europe's Migration Calculus
The European Commission downplayed its discussions in Brussels with a Taliban delegation as merely "technical" and focused on returns, but a Taliban spokesperson said it was a historic visit that was a step towards regularising consular relations with EU countries. The meeting prompted outrage. "You cannot condemn Taliban abuses in one breath and then announce talks on immigration in the next ... The Taliban are telling their constituency back home that they are now accepted by the international community," Abbasi said.
Campaigners fear that individual contacts by different countries risk undermining "coherent, consistent" demands for an improvement in human rights in return for any diplomatic concessions. A strict policy of isolation imposed after the Taliban seized power in 2021 toward informal or "de facto" recognition is now fragmenting. Some western commentators have suggested more countries recognise the regime. Others want intensified "back channel" engagement.
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. "The political reality of Afghanistan has changed in the last five years, and the current UN sanctions regime must take that into account," he said.
Geopolitical Calculations
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. 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.
Anna Borshchevskaya, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute focusing on Russia's policy towards the Middle East, said Moscow had multiple reasons for recognising the Taliban regime and seeking closer relations. "One likely objective is simply having allies ... Afghanistan is also very significant for Russia geographically and Russia just wants influence in that part of the world. There was an opening and they were able to take it," she said. "It's a very cold, cynical calculation. It's part of a very simple zero-sum view that for Russia to win the US has to lose. From the Kremlin perspective, this is a global battle and whether you are looking at Europe or Afghanistan or wherever, it's one geopolitical chessboard."
Taliban officials have also sought cross-border infrastructure projects to boost the country's fragile economy and diplomacy. Natural resources are another lure for overseas powers. Kabul has expanded the mining sector, attracting firms from neighbouring China and elsewhere. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan "seeks relations with all countries," though "the countries of the region and our neighbouring states have particular importance, because our economic ties and interests are closely linked."
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. Analysts don't 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.
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. "They are not going to make any significant concessions. Most of them don't have an international perspective," he said.
Why This Matters:
European governments face a difficult trade-off between managing migration flows and upholding human rights commitments. The Brussels talks on asylum returns signal that practical concerns about border control are driving policy — but without coordinated demands for Taliban reform, individual member states risk legitimising a regime that systematically persecutes women and minorities. The fragmentation of western isolation policy hands the Taliban diplomatic victories at no cost. If Europe wants credible border enforcement, it must also maintain credible human rights conditions for any normalisation of relations. Otherwise, migration management becomes complicity in repression — and the Taliban's calculation that they can wait out western pressure will be vindicated. National sovereignty over asylum policy is legitimate, but it cannot come at the expense of Europe's moral authority or the safety of Afghan women.