{"id":484856,"date":"2025-10-09T05:33:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T05:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/484856\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T05:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T05:33:11","slug":"no-to-trump-why-afghanistans-neighbours-have-opposed-us-bagram-plan-taliban-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/484856\/","title":{"rendered":"No to Trump: Why Afghanistan\u2019s neighbours have opposed US Bagram plan | Taliban News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Islamabad, Pakistan \u2013\u00a0<\/strong>Seated next to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer during a visit to the United Kingdom in September, United States President Donald Trump made clear he was eyeing a plot of land his country\u2019s military once controlled nearly 8,000km (4,970 miles) away: Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe gave it to [the Taliban] for nothing. We want that base back,\u201d he said. Two days later, this time opting to express his views on social media, Trump wrote<\/a>: \u201cIf Afghanistan doesn\u2019t give Bagram air base back to those that built it, the United States of America, bad things are going to happen!\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Taliban, predictably, bristled at the demand and stressed that under \u201cno circumstances\u201d will Afghans hand over the base to any third country.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the Taliban, who have ruled Afghanistan since their takeover of Kabul in August 2021, won a remarkable show of support for their opposition to any US military return to the country, from a broad swath of neighbours who otherwise rarely see eye-to-eye geopolitically.<\/p>\n

At a meeting in Moscow, officials from Russia, India, Pakistan, China, Iran, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan joined their Taliban counterparts in coming down hard on any attempt to set up foreign military bases in Afghanistan. They did not name the US, but the target was clear, say experts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey called unacceptable the attempts by countries to deploy their military infrastructure in Afghanistan and neighbouring states, since this does not serve the interests of regional peace and stability,\u201d said the joint statement (PDF)<\/a> published by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on October 7 at the conclusion of the seventh edition of what are known as the Moscow Format Consultations<\/a> between Afghanistan\u2019s neighbours.<\/p>\n

Pakistan, China, Russia and Iran had opposed \u201cthe reestablishment of military bases\u201d in a\u00a0similar declaration<\/a> last month on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. But the Moscow communique brought together a much wider range of nations \u2013 some with competing interests \u2013 on a single page.<\/p>\n

India and Pakistan have long vied for influence over Afghanistan. India also worries about China\u2019s growing investments in that country.\u00a0Iran has often viewed any Pakistani presence in Afghanistan with suspicion. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have long feared violence in Afghanistan spilling over into their territory. And in recent years, Pakistan has had tense relations with the Taliban \u2013 a group that it supported and sheltered for decades previously.<\/p>\n

The confluence of these countries, despite these differences, into a unanimous position to keep the US out of the region reflects a shared regional view that Afghan affairs are a \u201cregional responsibility\u201d, not a matter to be externally managed, said Taimur Khan, a researcher at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI).<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite their differences, regional countries share a common position that Afghanistan should not once again host a foreign military presence,\u201d Khan told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

That shared position, articulated in Moscow, also strengthens the Taliban\u2019s hands as it seeks to push back against pressure from Trump over Bagram, while giving Afghanistan\u2019s rulers regional legitimacy. Most of their neighbours are deepening engagements with them, even though Russia is the only country that has formally recognised them diplomatically as the Afghan government.<\/p>\n

A symbolic, strategic prize<\/p>\n

The groundwork for the Afghan Taliban\u2019s return to power was laid in Doha in January 2020<\/a>, under Trump\u2019s first administration; they ultimately took over the country in August 2021, during the tenure of the administration of former President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

Yet in February this year, a month after taking the oath for his second term, Trump insisted: \u201cWe were going to keep Bagram. We were going to keep a small force on Bagram.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bagram, 44km (27 miles) north of Kabul, was originally built by the Soviet Union in the 1950s. The base has two concrete runways \u2013 one 3.6km long (2.2 miles), the other 3km (1.9 miles) \u2013 and is one of the few places in Afghanistan suitable for landing large military planes and weapons carriers.<\/p>\n

It became a strategic base for the many powers that have occupied, controlled and fought over Afghanistan over the past half-century. Taken over by US-led NATO forces after the invasion of Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks, Bagram was a central facility in Washington\u2019s so-called \u201cwar on terror\u201d.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan\u2019s rugged, mountainous terrain means there are limited sites capable of serving as large military logistics hubs. That scarcity is why Bagram retains its strategic significance, four years after the US withdrew from the country.<\/p>\n

Kamran Bokhari, senior director at the Washington, DC-based New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, said he was sceptical about the US seriously planning any redeployment of forces to Afghanistan, despite Trump\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new US geostrategy is about military retrenchment. There is no appetite in Washington for any such military commitment, which would be a major logistical undertaking,\u201d Bokhari told Al Jazeera. \u201cEven if the Taliban were to agree to allow the Americans to regain Bagram, the cost of maintaining such a facility far outstrips its utility.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time,\u00a0Bokhari said that the Moscow meet worked as an opportunity for Russia to show that it retains influence in Central Asia, a region in which its footprint has been eroded by the war in Ukraine and by China\u2019s rising geoeconomic presence.<\/p>\n

But the concerns about any renewed US footprint in Afghanistan aren\u2019t limited to Russia, or even China, America\u2019s biggest long-term rival. Amid heightened tensions with the US and Israel, Iran will not want an American military presence in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Other regional nations \u2013 India and Pakistan among them \u2013 are also eager to show that the neighbourhood can manage the vacuum created in Afghanistan by the withdrawal of US security forces, Bokhari said. Though a close partner of the US, India\u2019s ties with Washington have frayed during Trump\u2019s second term, with the American president imposing 50 percent tariffs on imports from India, in part because of New Delhi\u2019s continued purchase of oil from Russia.<\/p>\n

And then there are the\u00a0Central Asian countries that share long, porous borders with Afghanistan \u2013 and fear their soil might be used by violent groups energised by any return of the US, militarily, to Bagram.<\/p>\n

\"BlastBlast walls and a few buildings can be seen at the Bagram airbase after the US military left the base, in Parwan province, north of Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2021 [File: Rahmat Gul\/AP Photo]Central Asia\u2019s security calculus<\/p>\n

The four Central Asian countries that were part of the Moscow Format \u2013 Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan \u2013 together with Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, form a bloc of six landlocked nations whose geography gives them a unique vantage point in regional politics, while also compelling them to seek access to warmer waters for trade.<\/p>\n

Analysts argue an American presence in the region would be \u201cundesirable\u201d for many of these nations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not knee-jerk anti-Americanism,\u201d Kuat Akizhanov, a Kazakh analyst and deputy director of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Institute (CAREC) said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA US base would put host states on the front line of US-Russia-China rivalry. Moscow and Beijing have both signalled opposition to any renewed US presence, and aligning with that consensus reduces coercive pressure and economic or security retaliation on our much smaller economies,\u201d Akizhanov told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

He added that regional actors now prefer regional groupings such as the Moscow Format, or even the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation<\/a> (SCO) led by Moscow and Beijing, for cooperation on security and the neighbourhood\u2019s stability, to any US presence.<\/p>\n

What do the Taliban and Afghanistan\u2019s other neighbours fear?<\/p>\n

Many of Afghanistan\u2019s bigger neighbours have their own concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey fear that a revived US military presence could potentially reintroduce intelligence operations, fuel instability, and once again turn Afghanistan into a proxy battleground,\u201d Khan from the Islamabad-based ISSI said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the lens from which regional countries now view Afghanistan: a space that must be stabilised through regional cooperation and economic integration, and not through renewed Western intervention or strategic containment efforts,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

For the Taliban, meanwhile, Trump\u2019s Bagram demands pose a dilemma, say experts.<\/p>\n

Ibraheem Bahiss, a Kabul-based senior analyst for Crisis Group, said he believed that Trump\u2019s Bagram demand was primarily driven by the US president\u2019s \u201cpersonal inclination\u201d rather than any consensus within the US strategic establishment. \u201cThere might be a sense that Afghanistan remains an unfinished business for him,\u201d the analyst told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

For the Taliban, surrendering Bagram is unthinkable. \u201cKabul cannot offer Bagram as it would antagonise their own support base and might lead to resistance against their own government if [the] US comes here,\u201d Bahiss said.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Bokhari, of the New Lines Institute, said that the Taliban know international sanctions are a major obstacle to governance and economic recovery, and for that, they will need to engage the West, and especially the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Taliban are asking for sanctions relief, but the question is, what do they offer? Washington is more interested in Central Asia, to which it does not have easy access to. The region is otherwise blocked by Russia, China and Iran,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Trump has cited Bagram\u2019s proximity to China and its missile factories as a reason for wanting to take back control of the base. Bagram is about 800km (about 500 miles) from the Chinese border, and about 2,400km (about 1,500 miles) from a missile facility in Xinjiang.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not in the US interest in allowing China to monopolise the region,\u201d Bokhari said.<\/p>\n

Against that backdrop, the Bagram demand might be a signal from the US that it is eager to explore new ways to do business with the Taliban, Bokhari and Bahiss agreed.<\/p>\n

Washington isn\u2019t the only one reaching out to the group, which until a few years ago was largely a global pariah. In fact, the US is late \u2013 the Taliban have already been making major headways, diplomatically, in its neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

Engagement, not recognition<\/p>\n

Since taking control of a country of more than 40 million people in August 2021, the Taliban have faced international scepticism over their style of governance.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan\u2019s rulers have imposed a hardline interpretation of Islam and have placed several restrictions on women<\/a>, including limits on working and education.<\/p>\n

International sanctions have further weakened an already fragile economy, while the presence of multiple armed groups \u2013 including Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) \u2013 continues to alarm neighbouring states. The Taliban insist that they do not support the use of Afghan soil to attack neighbours.<\/p>\n

Pakistan, once seen as the primary benefactor of the Taliban, says it has grown increasingly frustrated over the past four years at what it sees as the Afghan government\u2019s inability to clamp down on militants.<\/p>\n

The year 2024 was one of the deadliest for Pakistan in nearly a decade, with more than 2,500 casualties from violence, many of which Islamabad attributes to groups that it says operate from Afghan soil, allegations rejected by Kabul.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, several soldiers<\/a> were killed in an ambush by the TTP near the Afghan border in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.<\/p>\n

Still, Pakistan upgraded diplomatic<\/a> ties with the Taliban in May. That month, Afghanistan\u2019s acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi hosted his counterpart from Pakistan, spoke on the phone with India\u2019s foreign minister, and flew to Iran and China for summits.<\/p>\n

Muttaqi was in Moscow for the recent regional consultations that produced the criticism of Trump\u2019s Bagram plans, and on Thursday is due to arrive in New Delhi for a historic, weeklong visit to India, a country that viewed the Taliban as a Pakistan proxy \u2013 and an enemy \u2013 until a few years ago.<\/p>\n

Bahiss said the compulsion for regional nations to deal with the Taliban is driven by shared, pragmatic goals, which include keeping borders calm, guaranteeing counterterrorism assurances, and securing trade routes.<\/p>\n

Akizhanov, the CAREC analyst, meanwhile, said that the wider regional interaction with Afghan officials \u201cnormalise working channels [with the Taliban] and reinforces their narrative that regional futures will be decided locally, not by outside militaries\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, \u201clegitimacy remains conditional in capitals of each country, hinging on counterterrorism guarantees, cross-border security, economic connectivity, and basic rights, especially for women and girls,\u201d said the analyst, who is based in Urumqi, China.<\/p>\n

ISSI\u2019s Khan agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we are witnessing is not formal recognition, but a functional understanding that Afghanistan\u2019s isolation serves no one\u2019s interests,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Islamabad, Pakistan \u2013\u00a0Seated next to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer during a visit to the United Kingdom in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[2881,521,12,6026,2880,49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-484856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-afghanistan","9":"tag-asia","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-pakistan","12":"tag-taliban","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115342580459143698","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484856","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=484856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}