Putin on Potential Recognition of Taliban: Russia Working With Partners on Consolidated Approach

In October, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Taliban* may be excluded from the terrorist blacklist if the situation in Afghanistan continues to improve.

Russia is "working with all [our] international partners to come up with a consolidated decision" regarding possible recognition of the Taliban, President Vladimir Putin said at his annual press conference on Thursday, answering a question from Sputnik.

"As for recognition, as a whole we must proceed from reality, proceed from the fact that, after all, the forces that ended up at the head of Afghanistan will intend to ensure that all ethnic groups are represented in the leadership of the country. And this is the only thing, in my opinion, that can create conditions that give rise to hope for stabilisation in Afghanistan", Putin stressed.

The Russian president added that Afghanistan requires assistance and the nations present on Afghan territory for 20 years and destroyed its economy should take care of it.

"First of all, it is necessary to unfreeze Afghanistan's monetary holdings in foreign banks, primarily US ones, in order to provide humanitarian assistance in full to the Afghan people, otherwise there may be a famine and severe consequences that will also affect the neighbouring countries", Putin noted.

After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, the United States froze nearly $9.5 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank, while the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Union suspended funding for projects in the Islamic republic.

On 13 September, Taliban Spokesman Suhail Shaheen told Sputnik that the new Afghan government was ready to take all possible legal steps to unfreeze Afghanistan's foreign assets in the United States.

Putin Reveals When Russia May Exclude Taliban From Blacklist

The remarks followed Putin making it clear in October that the Taliban may be excluded from the ban list if the situation in Afghanistan continues to improve.

"We all expect from those people, from the Taliban, who now unconditionally control the situation in Afghanistan, we expect the situation to develop in a positive manner. We will make a decision to exclude them from this terrorist list, from the list of terrorist organisations", he said.

According to Putin, the decision should be made in the same way and as it was earlier made, when the Taliban was added to the list of terrorist organisations, that is, through the UN Security Council. "This is not about Russia", he emphasised.

In mid-August, the Taliban entered the Afghan capital Kabul, and the last province to resist the group, Panjshir, surrendered on 6 September, after weeks of successful Taliban advances on government troops, who offered little or no resistance.

As international troops withdrew from the country and foreign evacuations came to a close, the Taliban announced the composition of an all-male interim cabinet, headed by Mohammad Hasan Akhund, a former foreign minister during the Taliban's previous stint in power, who has been under UN sanctions since 2001.

*The Taliban is an organisation under UN sanctions for terrorist activities.