Russia mulls removing Taliban from terrorist list after resolving 'pressing issues'

Russia on Tuesday said that it needs to resolve “pressing issues” with Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders and was working to remove the Taliban from its list of banned terrorist organisations.

“This is a country that is next to us, and one way or another we communicate with them,” Reuters quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as telling reporters.

“We need to resolve pressing issues, this also requires dialogue, so in this regard we communicate with them like practically everyone else - they are the de facto authority in Afghanistan,” he said.

Peskov did not elaborate on the “pressing issues”, but Russia suffered its deadliest attack for 20 years last month when gunmen stormed a concert hall outside Moscow, killing at least 144 people.

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Earlier, the Foreign Ministry had told TASS that Russia was considering to remove the Taliban, currently banned in Russia, from the list of terrorist organisations.

“As for terminating the Taliban movement’s status of a terrorist organisation, this issue is being considered by the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Justice and other specialised agencies. The final decision will be made by the country’s top political leadership,” TASS quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying.

Russia’s special presidential representative for Afghanistan and Director of the Foreign Ministry’s Second Asia Department Zamir Kabulov also told TASS that a delegation of the Taliban movement, currently in power in Afghanistan, had been invited to participate in the Russia-Islamic World: KazanForum due in May.

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Islamic State militants had claimed responsibility for the Moscow attack and US officials said they had intelligence that it was the network’s Afghan branch, Islamic State Khorasan, that was responsible. Russia has said it is also investigating a Ukrainian link, something Kyiv and the United States have strongly rejected.

The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021 after the withdrawal of US-led foreign forces, but have remained until now on a list of organisations that Russia designates as terrorist.

With inputs from agencies