On 15 May 2025, India and the Taliban reached a pivotal moment in their diplomatic relations when External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar engaged in a telephone conversation with Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Acting Foreign Minister of Afghanistan’s Taliban administration.[i] This marked the first Ministerial-level contact between the two since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021. The conversation took place just days after India and Pakistan agreed to halt their military strikes in the wake of Operation Sindoor,
which followed the Pahalgam terror attack of April 22, which left 26 innocents dead and dozens injured[ii], an incident condemned by the Taliban regime.
India-Taliban Ministerial Talks
India’s Foreign Minister, in a message that was posted on X (formerly Twitter), wrote, “Good conversation with Acting Afghan Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi this evening. Deeply appreciate his condemnation of the Pahalgam terrorist attack.”[iii] During the telephonic conversation,
Dr Jaishankar underlined India’s traditional friendship with the Afghan people and reiterated India’s continued support for their development needs and “welcomed his firm rejection of recent attempts to create distrust between India and Afghanistan through false and baseless reports.”[iv] This appeared to be a response to allegations made by Pakistan’s military spokesperson, Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry,
who claimed during a May 10 press conference that India had “fired missiles at Afghan soil and conducted drone attacks inside Afghanistan.”[v] In reaction, Afghan Defence Ministry spokesperson Enayatullah Khwarazmi dismissed the accusation as baseless[vi].
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