A son of the Taliban’s founder and an Afghan deputy prime minister have traveled to Moscow in recent days for clandestine talks, former Afghanistan security executives told the Washington Examiner.
This comes on the heels of a Taliban contingent that arrived for an Oslo summit aimed at restoring legitimacy to the Afghan regime and unfreezing $10 billion in assets. The United States and European allies attended, focusing on Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis.
#Taliban and Western diplomats are holding a meeting outside Norway’s capital #Oslo for talks focused on #Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis, which has escalated drastically since last August when the Taliban stormed back to power 20 years after being toppled in a #US-led invasion pic.twitter.com/XlEFeWZybo
— GAROWE ONLINE (@GaroweOnline) January 24, 2022
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The Russian visit of Mohammad Yaqoob, defense minister and son of the Taliban founder, and Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Baradar was widely reported on Afghan and Middle East news sites although not officially confirmed.
Russia’s state-sponsored news agency TASS said no “members of the Taliban movement,” which is “outlawed in Russia,” are expected to arrive in the county.
“We have no such plans,” Russian Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov, told TASS on Monday. The Economic Times also reported Baradar’s arrival, saying Russia is “worried about the spread of radicals” from Afghanistan and other Eurasia countries.
“If Russians were going to confirm this trip, then they will not make it covert,” Afghanistan’s former director of national security Rahmatullah Nabil told the Washington Examiner. “According to sources, they went through Uzbekistan.”
Nasser von Naziri, a former Afghan government security adviser, said it is possible that the meeting will include begging for cash if the Western nations turn the Taliban down.
“If the EU rejects them, then they must go to Russia and China and Pakistan,” von Naziri said. “They want to fund their military first before anything.”
Von Naziri criticized the Taliban for creating a starvation nation while imprisoning women and dissidents. He is in constant contact with friends and former colleagues who barely have enough to eat.
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“I was about to send money today to save a few kids,” he said. “In the time of the U.S. military, this kind of situation was not present!”
