Afghanistan

The Iranian government is concerned for the Shiite Muslim and Persian-speaking communities in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Iran will host Afghanistan’s neighbors for a conference on Wednesday. The foreign ministers of Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan will attend the meeting in the capital Tehran. China’s foreign minister will attend virtually. …

The terrorist group that calls itself the Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K, provided one of the last searing images of the United States’ 20-year counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan when two of its suicide bombers killed thirteen U.S. troops at Kabul’s international airport, the deadliest day for U.S. armed forces …

The Biden administration is trying to work around longstanding terrorism-related sanctions to facilitate the delivery of aid to the struggling Afghan population. Despite the issuance of sanctions exceptions, Taliban rule in Afghanistan will cause many global banks to refuse to finance commercial transactions with the Afghan private sector. Whether U.S. …

The Moscow meeting of ten regional states and the Taliban officials on Wednesday has produced an outcome that by far exceeds expectations. The salience of the consensus opinion is four-fold, as reflected in the joint statement issued after the event: regional recognition that Taliban government is a compelling “reality”; it …

The foreign ministers of Iran and Turkey talked about collective efforts to ensure stability and fight against terrorism in Afghanistan, as Tehran is going to host a ministerial meeting of the Afghan neighbors next week. In a telephone conversation on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and his Turkish counterpart …

The United States regretted its inability to take part in the talks on Afghanistan in Moscow this week. The Russian side was pinning hopes on a meeting of the exclusive Troika Plus (US, China, Russia and Pakistan) followed by a gathering in an expanded format known as the ‘Moscow format’ …

Abstract: Six themes emerge from a close examination of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces’ (ANDSF) collapse in 2021: the ANDSF collapse was months—if not years—in the making; the United States did not give the ANDSF everything they needed to be independently successful; the ANDSF did put up a …

The port of Chabahar—located on the Makran coast of Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan Province, near to the Gulf of Oman and at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz—is the only Iranian port with direct access to the Indian Ocean. Thanks to its strategic position and links to north-south transit …

Despite heightened expectations, significant Chinese assistance to Afghanistan is unlikely to materialise soon. The Taliban’s takeover of Kabul on 15 August has strengthened speculation regarding a rising Chinese role in Afghanistan to replace the US-led coalition’s two-decade-long presence. The Taliban have recently called Beijing a ‘top ally’. China played its …

The United States’ chaotic departure from Afghanistan has left the region with mounting security questions and uncertain alliances as key countries take a cautious stance toward the new Taliban government, regional experts said in a recent online East-West Center discussion panel. Experts speaking in the “The New Geopolitics of Afghanistan” …