NEW DELHI: India’s ambassador to Qatar held talks with a top Taliban leader on Tuesday, the Indian foreign ministry said, the first formal diplomatic engagement since the hardline Islamist group took over Afghanistan.
The envoy, Deepak Mittal, met Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, the head of the Taliban’s Political Office in Doha, at the request of the Taliban, the foreign ministry said. India has long had concerns about the Taliban because of the group’s close ties to arch rival Pakistan. The foreign ministry said the two sides discussed the safety of Indians left behind in Afghanistan. Mittal also conveyed India’s fears that anti-India militants could use Afghanistan’s soil to mount attacks, the foreign ministry said.
“The Taliban representative assured the ambassador that these issues would be positively addressed,” the foreign ministry said.
The talks come days after Stanekzai was quoted in the local press as saying that the Taliban wanted political and economic ties with India. There was no immediate comment from the Taliban on the talks with the Indians. India invested more than $3 billion in development work in Afghanistan and had built close ties with the US-backed Kabul government.
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