Rediff On The NeT: Russia reconciled to Taliban rule in Afghanistan

Russia reconciled to Taliban rule in Afghanistan

The Kremlin has reconciled itself to the extremist Taliban calling the shots in war-ravaged Afghanistan, despite its reverses in the north, the ''only force able to unite the country as one entity.''

Political observers in Moscow have come to this somewhat ''painful inference'' following the outcome of last week's meeting between Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Viktor Posuvaly Uk and the Taliban representative in Islamabad.

On the eve of the Islamabad meeting, Ria-Novosti new agency said Moscow had been maintaining links with the Taliban regime for quite some time. ''it is none of our business who controls Afghanistan,'' the agency quoted a senior Russian general as having said.

Given the ongoing civil war in Afghanistan, with the mainly Pakhtoon Taliban militia pitted against the ethnic minorities of Uzbeks and Tajiks, Moscow is now inclined to accept their assurance of not crossing the border into central Asian countries and the former Soviet republics, the Moscow-based daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta said.

The Russian foreign ministry seems satisfied with the Taliban militia's commitment of ''non-use of force and creation of a broad-based government in Kabul,'' Ria-Novosti said. Failure to take into account the Afghan realities might perpetuate the existing divisions, it said.

This softening of stance is largely attributed to the strength of the Taliban militia, especially in the south, derived from ''Islamic fundamentalism'' and the draconian Shariat law, the daily said.

The daily conceded that the lifestyle introduced by the Taliban regime was medieval, but ''only the enforcement of Islamic laws'' could keep the warring tribes together.

These observations about Russia's cautious approach regarding its internecine neighbour, is echoed by Alexander Umnov, an expert on South Asian affairs at the Russian Institute of Arab and Israeli Studies in Moscow. Significantly, the state-run institute acts as a ''think-tank'' for the Kremlin in dealing with its neighbours.

Umnov advised the Russian leadership to ''overlook the Taliban's firm adherence to the Shariat'' and urgently called for ways to end the long-drawn-out war.

In fact, some political experts have underscored the need to buy peace with the Taliban as reunification of Afghanistan would be in the interests of the Muslim-dominated former Soviet republics in Central Asia which have already reached a stage of disintegration, the Gazeta said.

It drew a parallel to the public hanging of Afghanistan's last Communist ruler General Najibullah by the Taliban, saying it could well be an omen for the Central Asian states, who were not so long ago headed by the Communists.

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