Indian officials hold first talks with Taliban in Afghanistan

Bilateral ties and humanitarian aid were discussed in the first such visit to Kabul since the group took control of Kabul last year.

A team of Indian officials has met the acting foreign minister of Afghanistan to discuss bilateral ties and humanitarian aid, the Taliban said, in what was the first such visit to Kabul since the group took control of the country last year.

Poverty and hunger have rocketed in Afghanistan since the Taliban took power after the United States pulled out, and India has sent food grains and other aid.

The Taliban administration’s acting foreign minister, Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi, met an Indian foreign ministry delegation led by JP Singh, a secretary in the ministry.

“The meeting focused on India-Afghan diplomatic relations, bilateral trade and humanitarian aid,” Taliban foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said on Twitter.

Balkhi said the minister called the visit a “good beginning in ties between the two countries”.

India has no formal diplomatic ties with the Taliban government, but its envoys have previously met Taliban representatives in Doha, the capital of Qatar, where the group has an office.

Asked if New Delhi now officially recognized the Taliban administration, Indian foreign ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi told reporters they were “reading far too much into the visit”.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES