A senior Russian diplomat said on Monday that Moscow has invited the Taliban movement in Afghanistan to participate next month in the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, the largest held annually by Russia, as part of its move to lift the ban on the movement.
Since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021 with the withdrawal of US-led forces after a 20-year war, Russia has been slowly establishing relations with the Taliban, although the movement is still officially banned in Russia.
The Russian TASS news agency quoted Zamir Kabulov, Director of the Second Department for Asia at the Russian Foreign Ministry, as saying that the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Justice had submitted a report to President Vladimir Putin on the issue of lifting the ban on the Taliban.
Kabulov added that some issues are still outstanding, although he said that his country had invited the Taliban to attend the International Economic Forum, which will be held in St. Petersburg between the fifth and the eighth of June.
He said that Afghan leaders are usually interested in purchasing oil products.
The St. Petersburg forum, which at one time hosted Western CEOs and investment bankers from London and New York, witnessed major changes in light of the Ukraine war, which sparked the biggest crisis in Russia’s relations with the West since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
Instead of Western investors who previously sought to have a share in Russia’s vast resources and wealth, interest began to come from China, India, Africa, and the Middle East.
The Taliban movement, which means “students” in the Pashto language, appeared in 1994 in the city of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. It was one of the factions that fought a civil war to control the country after the Soviet Union’s withdrawal and the subsequent collapse of the government.
In 2003, Russia officially classified the Taliban as a “terrorist organization,” although it had periodic unofficial contacts with the movement.
