After the fall of the Republic and the re-establishment of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2021, views on Afghanistan were different and continue to be different. Some countries have paved the way for interaction and have tried to prevent Afghanistan from becoming isolated, and some others have tried to isolate the Taliban government and secure their own interests.
There is a not so complicated strategy regarding Afghanistan that starts from the west and continues to the east, but the nature of this strategy and the way the east and the west look at this country have been very different.
West’s attitude towards Afghanistan
After the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan for 20 years, which suffered a severe defeat in this country, the United States blocked 9.5 billion dollars of foreign currency reserves of Afghanistan’s Central Bank and stopped sending cash to Afghanistan under the pretext of the fall of the Afghan government.
This was the first step that the West took to isolate the Taliban and try to intensify the crisis in this country. The White House wanted to make up for its defeat by challenging the Taliban government, and while it tried to create the biggest financial and political crisis in the country by freezing Afghanistan’s assets, this strategy was not useful.
The Taliban were able to overcome the economic crisis by using internal resources as well as interaction and cooperation with regional and neighboring countries. Various meetings were held by the westerners regarding Afghanistan, the aim of which was to interfere in the affairs of this country in any way, so that they can change the situation according to their wishes by challenging the Taliban and prevent the cooperation and interaction of the countries of the region with the Taliban.
The meeting that was held by the United Nations in Doha, although the expectations were on the neutrality of this organization, but its western and unpleasant view on Afghanistan caused it to have no achievements. In fact, until today, Westerners have not seen a solution to Afghanistan’s problems.
The view of the East and the region towards Afghanistan
Currently, 17 countries have embassies in Kabul, the last of which was Azerbaijan, which officially opened its embassy in Afghanistan on February 15. The East and the countries of the region, especially Afghanistan’s neighbors, left the door open for interaction from the very beginning of the Taliban’s rise to power.
Instead of closing their embassies and creating obstacles, most of the countries in the region helped Afghanistan a lot by keeping them open, and the eyes on Afghanistan have been in the direction of bilateral interactions and progress.
Since the beginning, there have been good diplomatic, economic and commercial interactions between Afghanistan, and China, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran and other countries.
For example, the recent visit of Amir Khan Muttaqi, the acting foreign minister of the Taliban, to Turkmenistan seems to have achieved good results, which he himself describes as follows: “this trip has had good results in the diplomatic and economic relations between the two countries.”
Following this trip, the media announced that Nooruddin Azizi, Minister of Commerce and Industry, headed a delegation of private sector representatives to Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan.
The ministry announced in a newsletter that the trip was made for the purpose of participating in the opening of the first Turkmen-Afghan business communication meeting, the exhibition of Afghan products, the bilateral meeting of the private sector and the expansion of economic relations between the two countries.
Likewise, China is a neighbor of Afghanistan, in positive interaction with the Taliban, and has a lot of cooperation with Afghanistan in economic sectors, which has launched large projects from this country, an example of which is the extraction of oil from the Amu Darya basin in the north of the country, which has boosted the domestic oil refining activity by private companies that have been waiting for extraction for years.
The extraction contract between the Taliban government and the Chinese company “Central Asia Oil and Gas Company” has been signed. Actions that have changed views on Afghanistan.
The difference of views on Afghanistan
As mentioned, the views and approaches of the West and the East are completely different towards Afghanistan, and the Westerners, especially the US, have tried to isolate Afghanistan for their own interests, and on the other hand, the countries in the region have tried their best to make Afghanistan get rid of isolation and improve its condition. Because a troubled Afghanistan affected by crisis and problems has a great impact on the region.
The interaction of the region and the East with Afghanistan has greatly helped the people of Afghanistan and the economy of this country. The Westerners wanted to force the Taliban to provide the interests with the wrong formula of sanctions and pressure, while they knew that any sanctions would make a crisis for Afghanistan.
But the East adopted the right formula and changed the views on Afghanistan and was able to advance in cooperation with Afghanistan and prevent the big crisis that the Westerners wanted to create.
Seyyed Elias Ahmadi, Afghan expert
