The Taliban expressed their desire to reach a rapprochement with BRICS on Tuesday evening, a month before the summit of these countries in Russia.
“Countries with large resources and the largest economies in the world are linked to the BRICS group, especially Russia, India and China, which are key members,” Deputy Government Spokesman Hamdullah Farat told reporters.
The BRICS summit is scheduled to be held between October 22 and 24 in Kazan, Russia.
The BRICS group includes the major emerging countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and has expanded to include countries in the Middle East, including Iran and Egypt.
Asked whether Kabul had been invited to the BRICS summit and at what level it might be represented, the Afghan Foreign Ministry told AFP on Wednesday: “It has no information.”
More than 3 years after the Taliban returned to power, the movement is keen to break its isolation by rapprochement with Russia, China, India and most of the Central Asian republics through economic and trade exchanges.
In evidence of this rapprochement, Russia announced last May its intention to remove the Taliban from its list of terrorist organizations.
President Vladimir Putin also declared last July that he considered the Taliban an “ally in the fight against terrorism.”
A report in the French newspaper Le Monde stated that the Central Asian countries, led by Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, have begun working on rapprochement with the Taliban government in Afghanistan for economic and security reasons.
The report said that the visit of Uzbek Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov to Kabul on August 18 is considered an important event for the Taliban regime, which is seeking international recognition.
