Taliban’s Participation In The UN-Led Conference In Doha – Analysis

By Shivam Shekhawat

The third edition of the United Nations (UN)-led international conference in Doha on Afghanistan, held on June 30th and July 1st, ended without any significant development. The Taliban’s participation, with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) represented by a five-member delegation, along with the Special Envoys from 25 countries and some international organisations and the absence of women and other civil society groups was a major breakaway from the past iterations of the conference.

While the Taliban were not invited to the first edition and refused to attend the second meeting held in February, this time their participation was secured by granting them some concessions. As the Emirate comes close to reaching the three-year mark, it finds itself in a much more favourable strategic environment with countries in the region as well as around the world initiating some form of engagement with the group.

Vying for a seat at the table

Back in February, the Taliban put forth two demands in order to participate in the second edition of the Doha conference-—that they be treated as the sole representative of Afghanistan i.e. women and civil society groups should not be allowed to be a part of the gathering and that a meeting between the regime’s leadership and senior UN officials should be facilitated. At that time, the UN Secretary General, while rejecting these demands, classified them as akin to recognition.

This time around, women and civil society groups were barred from the main conference and were invited only for a separate gathering after the formal conclusion of the Doha conference. The UN Secretary General also skipped participation, with the Deputy Secretary General holding the fort, thus removing the possibility of a meeting between the Taliban and the UN Secretary General. 

Before the beginning of the conference, the group alsopitchedfor a transfer of Afghanistan’s seat in the UN to the IEA and asked the UN to stop the process of appointment of a UN Special Representative for Afghanistan. In terms of deciding what should be a part of the conference’s agenda, the group wanted the focus to be on the country’s economic situation, narcotics, and how to navigate the threat posed by armed groups like the ISKP with the Taliban being given some space to coordinate the final agenda. Thus, issues related to women’s rights, inclusive governance, Taliban’s ties to other terror groups like Al Qaeda were not put on the agenda. The official agenda had just two issues—economic progress and counter-narcotics. The UN Deputy Secretary General justified the absence of women by stating that the conference wasn’t an‘intra-Afghan’exercise and so didn’t require the participation of all stakeholders. This enabled the Taliban to get a seat at the table.

Pitching their case

The Emirate was represented by their spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, who outlined their policy priorities andlisted their demandsfor the international community. Relegating the criticism of their policies as a difference in perception between how countries view the world, the spokesperson stated their three demands—removal of the sanctions on the country’s banking sector, unfreezing of the Central Bank reserves and provision of alternate source of livelihood for the Afghan farmers against the backdrop of the ban on poppy cultivation. After the conclusion of the meeting, the Taliban expressed satisfaction at their message being successfully relayed to all the participating countries with ‘most countries’ agreeing to cooperate in these areas and‘pledging’that the banking and economic restrictions would be lifted. The latter claims were rejected by the UN, which stated that no such commitments were made or could be made by the UN and that the participation of the group in no way means that they are on track for recognition. At the end of the conference, there was only an agreement to formtwo working groupson the private sector and counter-narcotics.

Even without any concrete commitments, for the Taliban, as they head into their fourth year in power, the conference allowed them to position themselves as the sole representative of Afghanistan and to only broach topics that they were comfortable with discussing with the international community. They saw their participation as a testament of the success of their continued push for constructive engagement, compelling the international community to move away from ineffective ‘pressure tactics’ to a results-oriented approach. They detailed their work onbanning poppy cultivation, which according to their official media garnered praise from the international community; and they reduced the question of the rights and freedom of women to a‘policy difference’that was Afghanistan’s internal issue and thus shouldn’t be taken up at the meeting. The appointment of a Special Envoy, which was the central demand in the previous conference, was also basically shelved, with no update on the Taliban’s position.

As we have seen in the past three years, regional countries have intensified their engagement with the group because of both strategic security and economic considerations. This engagement, while seen as necessary because of the resurgence of terrorism in Afghanistan, has placed the regime in a position of power, giving them legitimacy and leverage to seek concessions from the international community. In the current scenario where the cleavages between the West and China and Russia have increased, Afghanistan has inadvertently become one of the theatres where this rivalry is replicated at a micro level. Even as the US has reduced its involvement in the region, the actions of both China and Russia are aimed at countering its presence. China has increased its economic investments in the country and has accredited a Taliban diplomat whereas Russia recently expressed its desire to remove the Taliban from its list of terrorist groups. Both Moscow and Beijing have stressed on accepting the political reality of the country and dealing with the Taliban without any pressure.

At the conference, the group had 24sideline meetingswith the representatives of Russia, China, India, Iran, Japan, and the US amongst. With the US envoy, the discussion focused on the release of two prisoners for which a quid pro quo was proposed by the IEA. Meetings in a quadrilateral format were also held with Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Qatar and Afghanistan discussing the developments in the Trans-Himalayan Railway. The Taliban highlighted how other countries should also engage with the group in a way similar to the regional countries for their ‘mutual bilateral benefits.’

Conclusion

While the UN deemed the discussions at the conference useful, they have also reiterated how the conference can’t resolve all the multi-faceted issues related to Afghanistan. They see their engagement with the group as an incremental, step-by-step process, not much different from how countries are dealing with them. The decision to go ahead with the conference without the participation of women and civil society groups highlights the tough position the world is currently facing vis-a-vis engaging with the regime and balancing the rights and freedoms of almost half of Afghanistan’s population.

As Afghanistan risks moving closer to becoming a staging ground for the proliferation of terror groups, some sort of communication with the group is deemed necessary to hedge against security threats. Moving towards their fourth year in power and positioned in a relative place of influence, the Taliban will have even less incentive to give in to the demands from the international community calling for inclusive governance and women’s rights; this risks pushing the inclusion agenda further on the backburner. The separate meeting with the Afghan women and civil society groups a day after the conclusion of the conference saw the participation of only 15 of the 25 Special envoys.

Managing the situation while balancing both security and strategic concerns along with the welfare of the Afghan people, specifically the rights of women and minorities, will determine how diplomacy with the group will look in their fourth year. For the Taliban, their participation was a diplomatic win for them—a testament of their ‘effective diplomacy’, with ‘imaginary stakeholders’ and a ‘fictitious agenda’ finding no presence in the discussion. With no significant gains from the conference vis-a-vis the security concerns that all regional countries including India have in Afghanistan, along with other economy-related concerns, it is incumbent on the international community to reassess the trade-off that they have been compelled to make and the effectiveness of the siloed approach that has been adopted in this regard.

• About the author: Shivam Shekhawat is a Junior Fellow with ORF’s Strategic Studies Programme.
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