Central Asian countries are taking steps to broaden relations with their southern neighbor, the Taliban-led Afghanistan, despite the hard-line group’s increasingly restrictive policies, particularly toward women. Kyrgyzstan removed the Taliban from its list of terrorist organizations earlier this month, Turkmenistan resumed work with Afghanistan on a major gas-pipeline project, and Uzbekistan signed $2.5 billion worth of cooperation agreements with Kabul during the Uzbek prime minister’s high-profile visit to Afghanistan in August.…
