Russia decides ‘at highest level’ to remove Afghan Taliban from terrorist list

MOSCOW: Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday that a decision to remove the Taliban from a list of terrorist organisations had been “taken at the highest level”, the state TASS news agency reported.

The decision needs to be followed up with various legal procedures in order to make it a reality, President Vladimir Putin’s special representative on Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, was quoted as saying.

Putin said in July that Russia considered Afghanistan’s Taliban movement an ally in the fight against terrorism.

Russia has been slowly building ties with the Taliban since it seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 as US-led forces withdrew after 20 years of war but the movement is still officially outlawed in Russia.

No country has formally recognised the Taliban as the country’s legitimate leadership, although China and the UAE have accepted its ambassadors. Russia added the Taliban to its list of terrorist organisations in 2003. Removing it would be an important step by Moscow towards normalising relations with Afghanistan.

The Taliban’s acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said in a speech in Moscow that recent decisions by Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to remove the former insurgents from a list of banned groups was a welcome step.

“We also appreciate the positive remarks by the high-ranking officials of the Russian Federation in this regard and hope to see more effective steps soon,” he said.