New Delhi : Afghanistan’s UN-sanctioned Foreign Minister has landed in India for a week-long visit. Amir Khan Muttaqi’s trip — made possible after the UN Security Council granted him a travel waiver — is the first visit by a top Taliban leader to India since they returned to power in 2021.
Afghan minister is likely to call on External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar and National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval. The visit comes at a crucial time for regional diplomacy and is expected to be closely watched by neighbours in Islamabad. Officials have a flag dilemma. The diplomatic protocol dictates that the Indian flag be placed alongside the flag of the country of the visiting leader– behind them and/or on the table– for photo ops.
It also does not give official status to the Taliban flag. So far, New Delhi has not allowed the Taliban to fly its flag — a plain white cloth with the black words of the shahada, the Islamic declaration of faith — at the Afghan Embassy in New Delhi. Kabul has used the Taliban flag in the background. During Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri’s meeting with Muttaqi in Dubai earlier this year, officials navigated the problem by not putting any flag in the background– neither the tricolour nor the Taliban’s.
Historically, India and Afghanistan had friendly relations, but New Delhi shut its embassy in Kabul after the 2021 US withdrawal from the war-shattered country and the return to power of the Taliban. India opened a small mission a year later to facilitate trade, medical support and humanitarian aid. Muttaqi’s visit to India is expected to add a new dimension to India’s relations with the Taliban set up in Kabul.
It comes days after India joined Russia, China and seven other nations to oppose efforts to deploy foreign military infrastructure in Afghanistan, against the backdrop of US President Donald Trump’s calls to the Taliban regime to hand over the strategic Bagram airbase. New Delhi has also been insisting that Afghan soil must not be used for any terrorist activities against any country.
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