Afghanistan: What Taliban takeover means for the area

The Chinese authorities has thus far seemed to be comfy with the collapse of the Afghan authorities and the Taliban’s takeover of the nation.
“The Chinese embassy in Afghanistan is continuing to operate as normal, and its ambassador and embassy staff will remain in their posts,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying stated on Monday.
Most Chinese residents in Afghanistan had earlier returned to China, however the ones who remained behind are in shut contact with the embassy, reported the South China Morning Post newspaper.
The spokesperson additionally harassed Beijing’s well-established contacts with the Taliban, underlining that the insurgents expressed a need for good ties with China.
“Afghanistan’s Taliban has expressed many times a desire for good relations with China, with an expectation that China will take part in Afghanistan’s rebuilding and development process, and will not allow any forces to use Afghanistan’s soil to harm China,” she stated. “We welcome this.”
No Taliban assist for Uyghur separatists?
The Chinese management is especially involved about Afghanistan rising as soon as once more as a protected haven for Islamic terrorists. In the previous, say consultants, the nation hosted Uyghur separatist forces of the so-called East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which aimed to determine an unbiased state referred to as East Turkestan changing China’s western Xinjiang province.

“It is clear that there have been Turkistan Islamic Party fighters in Afghanistan,” Andrew Small, a overseas coverage professional on the German Marshall Fund of the United States, informed DW. “There is a serious counterterrorism concern that China has in Afghanistan,” he added.
Small believes the Taliban’s ambiguous perspective towards Uyghur extremists from Xinjiang, whom Beijing blames for a collection of lethal assaults, is more likely to create tensions between Beijing and the incoming Afghan authorities.
“The question is whether the Taliban now is the same Taliban from 20 years ago, when they were in government,” he stated. “The group has such deep-rooted and complex ties with extremist and terrorist groups that it is too early to tell how worried China should be.”
While the Taliban had expressed a need to construct good relations with China on the latest assembly between the group’s representatives and Chinese officers, Small warned that “their attitude and promises can also change.”
India finds itself in a tricky spot
India evacuated its total diplomatic workers in Afghanistan, comprising over 190 personnel, from Kabul on Tuesday. The dramatic occasions over the previous few days and the seizure of energy by the Taliban have put Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s authorities in a bind, as New Delhi has maintained a constant anti-Taliban coverage for many years.
PM Modi chaired a gathering of the cabinet committee on safety to debate the best way ahead with regard to India’s engagement with a Taliban-led Afghanistan.
“We will keep an open mind, wait and watch what the Taliban actually do during and after the transitional process. We will also assess how inclusive they are in accommodating the gains of the last 20 years,” a senior authorities official informed DW.

Some observers warn that India’s investments in Afghanistan are in jeopardy after the Taliban takeover.
Over the previous 20 years, India has invested round $3 billion ($2.6 billion) in Afghanistan’s infrastructure, together with over 400 tasks throughout all provinces within the nation.
“Having pledged $3 billion and supported the Afghan government for the last two decades, New Delhi is caught between the devil and deep blue sea. The developmental assistance is in serious danger of reversal,” Shanthie Mariet D’Souza, a overseas coverage professional on the Kautilya School of Public Policy in Hyderabad, informed DW.
D’Souza, who has spent greater than a decade working within the governmental and non-governmental sectors in varied provinces of Afghanistan, believes New Delhi has to give you a practical and astute coverage to have interaction with the Taliban.
That’s wanted to make sure continuation of its current growth help for the Afghans to protect the positive aspects made and forestall a humanitarian disaster, she stated.
Strategic dilemma for New Delhi
A Taliban-led Afghanistan additionally poses safety challenges for New Delhi. For years, anti-India militant teams like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad have been working from their bases and coaching camps in Afghanistan-Pakistan border area to launch assaults in opposition to targets in India.

With the Taliban controlling Afghanistan now, these militant outfits could possibly be additional emboldened and have entry to higher territory to hold out their operations.
“Strategically, it will depend on how the Taliban’s relationship with Pakistan and China evolves, and if the group supports Islamabad’s proxy warfare in Kashmir,” Navnita Behera from the University of Delhi informed DW.
A pyrrhic victory for Pakistan?
Pakistan, or extra exactly the Pakistani army institution, has supported the Afghan Taliban for many years, not least to realize “strategic depth” in Islamabad’s battle with India.
Now that the Taliban have taken over Afghanistan, does it imply excellent news for Pakistan? Not solely, say observers like Madiha Afzal, a South Asia professional on the Brookings Institution.

“Pakistan will face security concerns with a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, chiefly from an emboldened and resurgent Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a terrorist group responsible for killing tens of thousands of Pakistanis,” Afzal informed DW.
The developments in Afghanistan may additionally improve different fundamentalist teams inside Pakistan, “in a way that renders them more powerful than before and threaten the state’s authority,” the professional stated.
“I think Pakistan will have less clout over the Taliban now than it did in the 1996-2001 timeframe,” Afzal famous, stating that the militant group has gained worldwide legitimacy because it struck a take care of the US in Doha and due to this fact wants Pakistan much less now than earlier than.
Claude Rakisits, professor of worldwide relations on the Australian National University, says that Islamabad primarily desires one factor from its future relationship with the brand new management in Kabul: safety from cross-border terrorist assaults launched from TTP protected havens on Afghan soil.
“Basically, Islamabad wants a relationship with Kabul which enables it to stop worrying about its western border and potential terrorist attacks launched from safe havens in Afghanistan,” stated Rakisits.

Also, Islamabad desires Kabul to affix the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) challenge, he famous. “Pakistan would very much like to see Afghanistan join up with CPEC and be integrated with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.”
This, in flip, will rely upon how ties between the Taliban and Beijing unfold.
About recognizing the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Information Fawad Chaudhry stated any recognition of the Taliban administration will probably be a “regional decision” taken after consultations with regional and worldwide powers.
“We are in contact with our friends globally and regionally and we will decide after consulting them.”

Iran fears a brand new refugee wave
The Iranian management seems to have combined emotions in regards to the latest developments within the neighboring nation. On the one hand, Tehran is comfortable to see US forces depart its neighborhood. But alternatively, it’s involved about safety and stability in Afghanistan.
At current, round 750,000 Afghan refugees are formally registered in Iran. Up to 2 million extra Afghans reside illegally within the nation, and now hundreds extra are fleeing the Taliban.
Iran, which shares a 950-kilometer-long (590 miles) border with Afghanistan, is frightened a couple of new wave of Afghan refugees and asylum-seekers flooding the nation.

Iranian authorities say they’ve arrange three reception services alongside the border.
“As soon as the current situation stabilizes, refugees and asylum-seekers will be able to return to their homes from there,” authorities spokesman Hossein Kasemi stated.
Furthermore, Iran and the Taliban haven’t all the time shared cordial ties. Despite years of bilateral talks between Iran’s Shiite authorities and representatives of the Sunni Taliban, the Islamists are hated in Iran.
In 1998, Iran virtually launched a army marketing campaign in opposition to the Taliban. The Taliban had beforehand killed eight Iranian diplomats and a correspondent of the official information company IRNA on the Iranian Consulate within the northern Afghan metropolis of Mazar-i Sharif. The day of his assassination, August 8, continues to be marked as “Journalists’ Day” in Iran.