Amid the Afghanistan-Pakistan Conflict, India-Taliban Diplomatic Ties Are Strengthening
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- India's diplomatic outreach to the Taliban accelerated with the January 8, 2025 UAE-facilitated meeting in Dubai between External Affairs Secretary Vikram Misri and Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, marking a major shift from New Delhi's prior anti-Taliban stance.
- Four Taliban ministers visited India in nine months: Foreign Minister Muttaqi (October 2025, six-day trip), Commerce Minister Noorudin Azizi (November 19-25), Health Minister Noor Jalal Jalili (December 16-21), and Agriculture Minister Mawlawi Ataullah Omari (July 7-12), covering trade, health, and agriculture cooperation.
- New Delhi handed over the Afghan embassy to the Taliban and sent a chargé d'affaires to Kabul after Muttaqi's October visit, with Taliban official Mufti Noor Ahmad Noor assuming the embassy role in January 2026.
- The Kabul-Amritsar and Kabul-Delhi air freight corridors were reactivated in December 2025 — originally launched in 2017 but disrupted in 2020 — providing a critical trade route since no direct land route exists between India and Afghanistan.
- India-Afghanistan trade surpassed $1.5 billion in the last fiscal year and is positioned to grow further, as Pakistan-Afghanistan trade collapsed from $2 billion to roughly $1 billion amid border closures tied to the ongoing military conflict.
- India was the only country to condemn Pakistan's strikes on Kunar, Paktia, and Paktika at the United Nations, while the Taliban's ban on Pakistani medicine imports opened space for New Delhi to expand pharmaceutical supply to Afghanistan.
Why it matters: Pakistan's decades-long 'strategic depth' policy in Afghanistan has visibly backfired: Taliban-Pakistan trade collapsed from $2 billion to roughly $1 billion amid border closures, and India — now the sole country condemning Pakistan's strikes on Afghan soil at the UN — is filling the diplomatic and economic vacuum with $1.5 billion in bilateral trade, an embassy transfer, and four ministerial visits in nine months.
