{"id":238873,"date":"2025-07-05T01:32:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T01:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/238873\/"},"modified":"2025-07-05T01:32:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T01:32:11","slug":"russia-becomes-first-country-to-recognise-taliban-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/238873\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia becomes first country to recognise Taliban government"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia has become the first country to formally recognise the Taliban’s government in Afghanistan since it seized power in 2021.<\/p>\n

The move followed Moscow removing the group from its list of outlawed organisations.<\/p>\n

The Russian Foreign Ministry announced that it had received credentials from Afghanistan’s newly appointed ambassador, Gul Hassan Hassan.<\/p>\n

The official recognition of the Afghan government will foster “productive bilateral cooperation”, the ministry said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry called it a historic step, and quoted Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi welcoming the decision as “a good example for other countries”.<\/p>\n

“This brave decision will be an example for others \u2026 Now that the process of recognition has started, Russia was ahead of everyone,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mr Muttaqi said.<\/p>\n

He said it was “a new phase of positive relations, mutual respect, and constructive engagement”.<\/p>\n

Taliban sweeps back to power<\/p>\n

The Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021 following the withdrawal of US and NATO forces.<\/p>\n

Since then, it has sought international recognition while also enforcing its strict interpretation of Islamic law.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan flag hangs from the Afghan embassy in Moscow.\u00a0 (Reuters: Maxim Shemetov)<\/p>\n

While no country formally recognised the Taliban administration until now, the group had engaged in high-level talks with many nations and established some diplomatic ties with countries including China and the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n

Still, the Taliban government has been relatively isolated on the world stage, largely over its restrictions on women.<\/p>\n

Although the Taliban initially promised a more moderate rule than during its first stint in power from 1996 to 2001, it started to enforce restrictions on women and girls soon after the 2021 takeover.<\/p>\n

Russian court removes Afghan Taliban from list of banned terrorist groups <\/a><\/p>\n

The court’s ruling on a request by Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office followed last year’s adoption of a law stipulating that the official designation as a terrorist organisation could be suspended by a court.<\/p>\n

Women are barred from most jobs and public places, including parks, baths and gyms, while girls are banned from education beyond sixth grade.<\/p>\n

Russian officials have recently been emphasising the need to engage with the Taliban to help stabilise Afghanistan, and lifted a ban on the Taliban in April.<\/p>\n

In July 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the Taliban “allies in the fight against terrorism”.<\/p>\n

Russia’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Dmitry Zhirnov, said Mr Putin decided to recognise the Taliban government on advice from Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.<\/p>\n

Mr Zhirnov said the decision proved Russia’s “sincere striving for the development of full-fledged relations with Afghanistan”.<\/p>\n

AP\/AFP<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia has become the first country to formally recognise the Taliban’s government in Afghanistan since it seized power…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[2881,4671,35803,92959,48470,332,2880,1292],"class_list":{"0":"post-238873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-afghanistan","9":"tag-diplomatic-relations","10":"tag-girls","11":"tag-islamic-law","12":"tag-kabul","13":"tag-russia","14":"tag-taliban","15":"tag-women"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114798052766662449","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}