Iran and China have fully endorsed the jihadist Taliban as a “legitimate” interim government, and “appear to be using it as a green light to proceed in action as if the Taliban were, indeed, the legitimate government of the country.” Of course, both governments have their own agendas in endorsing the Taliban.
Other countries, including Pakistan, Turkey and Russia, also support the group, but are not yet willing to take the additional step of recognizing the Taliban as a “state entity” and the “official government” of Afghanistan, as China and Iran have done. Nor will most other countries, and this is key. The World Bank and the IMF, which is “currently holding back billions in Afghan government funds, refused to acknowledge the Taliban in August.”
Here is a background glimpse on where some countries/bodies stand:
- Australian Federation of Islamic Councils invites two members of Taliban to online forum, cancels after outcry
- Pakistan: Islamic parties push for Taliban recognition in support of its ‘application of Shariah law’
- Turkey welcomes Taliban to Ankara, urges international engagement with the jihad group
- UN Chief Calls For Aid For Taliban-Ruled Afghanistan
- Biden’s handlers praise ‘candid and professional’ Taliban, promise aid.
A former UN ambassador warned Biden about what should be obvious: legitimizing a Taliban government carries multiple risks.
The biggest possible threats to Taliban rule are a failure to gain formal legitimacy (that would earn it a reliable supply of international funds), and their nemesis ISIS-K (which is no worse a jihad terror group than the Taliban itself). ISIS-K is determined to expand the territory it controls, and also hold on to its lucrative sources of income. Four years ago, ISIS was reported by the Russian Federal Service for Drug Control to be earning up to $500 million a year on the transit of Afghan heroin alone. Such gains will not be easily surrendered, as the Taliban also seeks its own share of the competitive drug trade.
“Iran, China Legitimize Taliban as ‘Interim Government’ of Afghanistan,” by Frances Martel, Breitbart, October 10, 2021:
Chinese and Iranian diplomats both referred to the Taliban terrorist organization on Wednesday as a “government” – modifying the term with words like “interim” or “caretaker” – suggesting both rogue regimes have accepted the group’s legitimacy as a state entity.
The Taliban invaded and conquered Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, on August 15. The fall of the capital occurred after the jihadists stormed the rest of the country and seized power with little resistance from the Afghan military, in a campaign launched in response to President Joe Biden extending the 20-year American presence in Afghanistan beyond the pre-existing May 1 deadline.
No state has recognized the Taliban as the official government of Afghanistan, nor have international institutions like the United Nations. As a result, the Taliban does not have access to billions of dollars in government assets, and the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have frozen Afghanistan’s assets. Taliban representatives have invested heavily in pressuring the world to accept them as the rulers of the country and fund their regime, arguing that they cannot succeed as a government without foreign investment.
The Communist Party of China, which has enthusiastically adopted calls to fund the Taliban but done little to support the terrorists itself, sent Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Qatar this week to meet with Taliban officials. Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, referred to the Taliban as a “government” on Wednesday.
“State Councilor Wang Yi also had contact with Acting Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi of the Afghan Taliban’s interim government [emphasis added] in Qatar,” Zhao told reporters during the ministry’s daily briefing. “State Councilor Wang Yi noted that Afghanistan now stands at a critical stage of transition from chaos to order.”
Zhao demanded the U.S. government fund the Taliban….
mortimer says
Now the official, Bronze-Age dictatorship of Afghastlistan recognized by two of the words greatest terror-state dictatorships.
Interesting how dictatorships can agree even across ideological chasms. China promotes jihadism in Afghastlistan while sterilizing Muslim women in China so they will not bring more Muslims into China.
Ray Jarman says
I think you are correct but what about the Shiite terrorist regime in Iran endorsing the Sunni terrorist in Kabul? Iran seems as blind to their fellow Shias being decimated by Afghan Sunnis as they seem unable to see the atrocious methods the Chinese use to eradicate Islam in China. They are only second to the Communists in the Democrat party of Uncle Joe here in the US in hypocrisy as they too love to sell our manufacturing base to the Chinese.
mortimer says
If you grant diplomatic recognition to the Taliban, then the West will still have to fight them and re-conquer the country within 2 years … because the Taliban is a jihad-terror outfit and jihad-terror is what they do, both internally and externally.
Old Joe-mentia the Bribed-man will surely offer all Afghans ONE MILLION DOLLARS to re-locate to the US … that’ll solve the problem, won’t it? (sarc/off)
Hugh Fitzgerald says
Those faces so expressive of fanaticism and idiocy; now those Taliban troglodytes control a whole country of 40 million people.. I think of Shakespeare’s line in Othello about “a malignant and a turbaned Turk.” But the Taliban is much worse.
Walter Sieruk says
This alliance of evil between the Communist leaders of Red China and the Taliban will only ,in time, have disaster come back hard on them with their despicabable and scheming Red.Green Alliance .
For as the Bible informs its reader “Though they join forces , the wicked will not go unpunished,”
Proverbs 11:21. [N.K.J.V.]
VICTOR COWEN says
Love your top picture of these bearded wonders it looks like the start of a comedy prog. on TV.
Perhaps it is.
Walter Sieruk says
That joining of powers of rulers of Red China, with their flawed godless system of Communism and the Taliban with their false religion of Islam in some ways do make a fitting match .on that they are both in an alliance of demonic system of belief therefore they may rightly be called “An Alliance of Evil.”
sidney penny says
“Zhao demanded the U.S. government fund the Taliban….”
As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would!