Shanghai Cooperation Organization Not Recognizing Taliban Government But Will Have Dialogue

The Russian Special Presidential Envoy for SCO affairs, the Foreign Ministry’s Special Ambassador Bekhtiyer Khakimov  has stated that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will not recognize the Taliban government in Afghanistan but will establish contact with its leaders.

“The Taliban is outlawed in Russia as a terrorist organization. But the objective reality today as it is, the Taliban movement holds power. A new transitional government has been formed. At this moment, the issue on the agenda is not recognition but the establishment of contacts with those who have risen to power to involve them in a constructive dialogue.” he said.

Khakimov said that the SCO was prepared to furnish assistance to Afghanistan’s economic reconstruction and its further development and participation in regional cooperation.

The SCO includes China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, with Iran shortly to attain full member status. Observer nations include Afghanistan, Belarus, Mongolia, while Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Turkey are dialogue partners together with Egypt, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Turkmenistan, ASEAN, the CIS and United Nations are guests.

The SCO is therefore represented by all Afghanistan’s neighboring countries in addition to important Islamic nations influential within the Taliban.

“Promotion of a pan-Afghan political dialogue and settlement remains the key task. Otherwise, the situation in Afghanistan will remain what it has been for many years — chaos, unrest, lawlessness, and so on,” Khakimov explained. “But there is the understanding that the bulk of responsibility for Afghanistan’s socio-economic reconstruction must be borne by those counties which had been present there for 20 years and heavily involved not so much in construction and revival as in the country’s economic destruction, which is well seen in the humanitarian disaster that we are witnesses to today.”

The Taliban launched a large-scale operation for establishing control of the country’s entire territory after the United States last spring declared the decision to pull out its troops. On September 6, the Taliban declared they were in full control of Afghanistan. On September 7, the movement unveiled the composition of a transitional government.

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