At what point is the “creeping” recognition of the Taliban by the international community?

Almost a year has passed since the third Doha Conference organized by the UN in June 2024 to normalize relations between the international community and the de facto government of Afghanistan and officially reopen economic and political relations.

An event that had registered an important novelty in diplomatic relations: the direct participation of representatives of the Taliban government, invited for the first time to participate on an equal footing with the 25 countries that are part of it despite the lack of official recognition of its legitimacy.

A scandalous novelty, not only because this “first time” had marked a de facto acceptance of the Taliban government as the representative of the Afghan people despite its seizure of power not having occurred democratically, but above all because this presence was accepted in exchange for the exclusion of Afghan women and their rights from the issues discussed in the Conference, to allow the diktat of the Taliban who had set it as a condition for their participation. Acceptance that had been heavily criticized not only by women and human rights movements around the world but also by some representatives of the United Nations itself.

The conference ended without specific commitments but had established the negotiators’ willingness to continue with discussions on economic issues in preparation for other appointments and meetings.

What happened to these commitments, what was the follow-up to the Doha Conference? In recent months, almost nothing has appeared in the media to update us on the negotiations underway between the UN and the Taliban government, on the status of the process of recognition of their government and on the progress of the commitments made.

This lack of news is not to be attributed to the interruption of relations or the lack of developments in the dialogue, but to the choice to change strategy: it was in fact decided to remove visibility from the process of rapprochement with the Taliban managed by the UN and instead delegate the conduct of the talks and mediation proposals to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama).

Was it perhaps the criticism of human rights and women’s associations or the Taliban’s refractory attitude to change that made the UN change course, perhaps to seek more coherent ways of defending the rights of the Afghan people? Unfortunately not, because the new format proposed and carried forward by Unama, called the “Mosaic Plan”, or Global Roadmap for Afghanistan, once again has the declared objective of normalizing relations with Afghanistan as soon as possible, to bring it back into the international community under the control of “these” Taliban and “this” government.

And to facilitate negotiations, it proposes an approach no longer aimed at conditioning the Taliban with preliminary issues of principle and requests for democratic openings, but instead separates the problems to address them one at a time – those that interest the Taliban right away, and those proposed by the international community in the future – so that it is easier, without the burden of burning and divisive issues, to reach agreements. In order to reduce the conflict, a strategy is proposed that separates “practical” problems, such as the fight against drug trafficking, the development of the private sector and economic cooperation – which the Taliban like – from “complex” ones, such as human and women’s rights and anti-terrorism. That is, the issues concerning rights and democracy are left in a generic and ambiguous formulation, to be addressed “gradually”, in the indefinite future “sooner or later” – Afghan women are resilient anyway.

With this strategy, the involvement of the Taliban in the dialogue no longer aims at a manifesto-event that gives visibility to the UN’s conciliatory intervention, but prefers a quiet, creeping process, made up of bilateral meetings or little more, that does not attract attention, in the hope that it will finally be possible to reach an agreement with the Taliban and do business with them without annoying critical interventions, those businesses that for now are only in the hands of the small and large regional powers that are jostling to get there first.

The aim of this process is intended to be “an Afghanistan at peace with itself and its neighbours, fully reintegrated into the international community and able to meet its international obligations”, says the Plan, based on the recommendations of the independent evaluation by Feridun Sinirlioglu and in application of the 2023 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2721.

Women’s and human rights groups have criticized this new plan. They argue that Unama is in fact facilitating the legitimization of the Taliban rather than defending the rights of the Afghan people and that this roadmap has not foreseen any role for women, civil society and real victims of the government.

In a joint statement, 54 social organizations, associations and activist groups denounced the acceptance of the Taliban as the main interlocutors and warned that the initiative grants the government concrete concessions while asking in return for little more than vague and unworkable promises. They also say that by making human rights an object of negotiation, Unama undermines their universality and inviolability, failing in the impartial and humanitarian mission of the United Nations that is its own.

The United Nations stressed that its commitment to the Taliban should not be misinterpreted as political recognition. Unama said the plan was still under review and that it wanted to involve in its management all interested parties, from the countries that are part of the Doha Process to other components that play a key role in the region, such as the G7, governments holding Afghan resources, the UN sanctions team and the so-called “non-Taliban” groups vaguely mentioned at the end of the plan. But Unama has refused to specify exactly which parties, outside of the Taliban, have been involved so far.

Meanwhile, the Taliban, happy to be at the center of diplomatic attention, are aiming high and responding to the Plan’s expectations by asking for the lifting of UN sanctions, currently imposed on over 130 members of the group and affiliated entities; the recovery of assets frozen by the US; the assumption of diplomatic representation abroad, that is, the seat at the UN, currently in the hands of representatives of the government of the previous Republic. In short, a real recognition of legitimacy.

In exchange, the Plan calls for global reforms, such as the formation of an inclusive government, respect for human rights and commitment to the fight against terrorism, but, by not providing for enforcement or inclusion mechanisms, these requests remain generic and empty. As the political opposition observes, “the Taliban’s demands are concrete and measurable: they want diplomatic legitimacy, access to foreign reserves and the lifting of sanctions. On the contrary, the expectations of the international community remain undefined”.

The “Mosaic Plan” claims to focus on mutual trust and demonstrating the benefits that cooperation can bring to governance and the Afghan people to achieve changes in Taliban politics. But how can there be cooperation with a fundamentalist government that believes that it is not its responsibility to provide for the needs of its citizens because it believes that the well-being and survival of the people come directly from God? How can one have confidence in a regime that is only concerned with obtaining obedience to what it claims to be the true religion through violence?

The Taliban government cannot be a credible interlocutor. There is no guarantee that the Afghan people can obtain respect for their human, economic and social rights from the Taliban. As women and democratic associations have rightly argued, “this plan must be stopped, our voices must be heard”.