Russia will host multilateral talks about Afghanistan on Wednesday 20 October. The talks, to which neighbouring countries such as Pakistan and China have been invited, are notable because they will also include Afghanistan’s de facto rulers, the Taliban. The group was not invited to last week’s G20 talks on Afghanistan.
A “large Taliban delegation” will be present in Moscow, foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told the media. The summit will be one of the first to include the Taliban since it seized control of Afghanistan in August, even as no government has so far recognised the group as the country’s legitimate rulers.
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