In September 2021, just six weeks after seizing control of Afghanistan,
the Taliban requested formal accreditation at the United Nations
and for its foreign minister be allowed to speak at the General Assembly.
While the UN sidestepped the issue, at least for now, it nevertheless
raises an important and interesting question: when
and how will the international community recognise the Taliban regime?
Hello and welcome. If you're new to the channel, my name is James Ker-Lindsay and here I take an
informed look at international relations, conflicts and the origins of countries.
When we talk about recognition in international relations, we tend to mean state recognition.
In other words, does Country A recognise Country B as a sovereign state.
However, there's another major form of recognition: the recognition of governments.
Does Country A recognise the regime in Country B as the legitimate administration of that state.
While this was once widely used,
it's actually fallen out of fashion over the past 40 or 50 years.
Countries no longer wanted to have to take a public position on new administrations;
especially ones that came to power
in contentious circumstances, such as by revolution or military coup.
Invariably this would be a no-win situation, especially for Western countries.
If they recognised an autocratic regime, they'd be condemned for undermining democracy.
If they announced that they didn't recognise it, their hands would then be tied.
It just became easier not to make a formal announcement either way.
In recent years, though, government recognition has been steadily creeping back onto the agenda.
The last decade has seen debates on whether to accept the Assad regime in Syria,
the Lukashenka administration in Belarus, and, most recently, the military junta in Myanmar.
However, it's the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan
that's really brought the issue to the forefront of international attention.
The group's violent past, coupled with worries about its future plans,
has made the question of its recognition unavoidable.
I've covered afghanistan in a recent video and so I won't go into a lot of detail again here.
Lying at the meeting point between Central, South and East Asia and the Middle East,
the country has an exceptionally long history, including numerous regime changes.
For our purposes, the story really starts in 1919 when the Emirate of Afghanistan,
then a British protectorate, declared independence - becoming the Kingdom of Afghanistan in 1926.
In 1934, it joined the League of Nations before
becoming a member of the newly formed United Nations in 1946.
In 1973, the monarchy was abolished and the country became a republic
before falling to a Marxist military regime in 1978.
When this came under threat,
the Soviet Union intervened - leading to a bitter and bloody conflict.
Although the USSR retreated in the late 1980s, the country continued under the
communist administration until 1992, when it was overthrown by the mujahideen;
a disparate collection of forces that had led resistance to Soviet control.
Riven by factionism, the mujahideen never
succeeded in establishing control over the country.
Instead a new grouping emerged: the Taliban.
Adhering to a particularly strict view of Islam, and supported by neighbouring Pakistan,
it seized control in late 1996.
However, given its particularly brutal disregard for basic human rights, as well
as its support for violent islamist terrorist groups, it became an international pariah.
While it lobbied for international acceptance, including UN representation,
just three countries ever recognised it: Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
After five years, its rule came to an end following Al-Qaeda's attacks on September 11, 2001
when the United States and its NATO allies invaded Afghanistan and forced the Taliban from power.
However, the Taliban remained active,
launching an insurgency against the new government and foreign forces.
Over the next decade and a half,
the United States and others continued efforts to defeat the Taliban, without success.
Against a backdrop of growing fatigue at what was becoming America's longest war,
the Trump Administration eventually decided to negotiate with the group.
Following peace talks in Qatar, the sides reached an agreement in February 2020.
In return for a Taliban commitment not to allow Afghanistan to be used by groups opposed
to the United States and its allies, Washington agreed to withdraw its forces from the country.
In April 2021, the new Biden Administration announced that it would honour the deal.
With just weeks to go before the planned 1 September departure date,
the Taliban stepped up its offensive and, on 15 August, retook the capital, Kabul.
From the moment it retook power, the Taliban made it clear that it wanted international acceptance.
However, since then, not a single country has recognised the new regime.
The appalling nature of the previous period of Taliban rule naturally means that the world is
reluctant to endorse it, or be seen to endorse it - at least for the moment.
But, behind this apparent consensus, lies a broad range of opinions.
At one end are the countries that appear to support,
or are willing to engage with, the Taliban.
The most obvious is Pakistan.
But while it welcomed the Taliban takeover,
it's clear that Islamabad doesn't want to be the first and only country to endorse the new regime.
To this end, it already appears to be lobbying for recognition behind the scene.
Others that appear more willing to engage with the Taliban include Qatar,
where the Taliban has had a political office for many years, and which hosted the peace
talks, and Turkey, which is known to have established good relations with the Taliban
and seems keen to be a bridge between the group and the wider international community.
Next are the group that we might call the 'regional pragmatists'; the countries that,
while not favourable towards the Taliban, understand the need to engage with it.
The most important members of this group are Russia and China.
While most countries have suspended their diplomatic presence in Afghanistan,
both have maintained their embassies in Kabul and appear to be engaging directly
with the new Taliban government.
But, again, neither seems to be in any hurry to recognise it formally;
a point made by the Russian foreign minister.
Similarly, other neighbouring countries - such as Iran, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan
-are weighing the situation carefully before deciding on their next steps.
So far, Tajikistan is taking the most overtly tough line;
with Dushanbe waiting to see how ethnic Tajiks, who make up around a quarter of
the Afghan population, are treated before deciding what it will do.
But, at least for now,
most of the international community appears to be far more opposed to recognition.
While few have ruled it out completely,
the general view is that recognition will depend on how the Taliban behaves.
As the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, explained soon after the Taliban took control,
the UK and others will be looking for three conditions.
The Taliban will have to ensure that safe passages granted for those who wish to leave the country.
It will also have to respect the rights of women and girls.
And, finally, it will have to prevent the country from becoming 'an incubator for global terror.'
But, perhaps most importantly, he stressed that this won't happen unilaterally.
Instead, recognition will be a collective decision for the international community.
And this is where the Taliban's application for UN accreditation may yet be particularly important.
On 20 September 2021, the Taliban foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi,
wrote to the UN Secretary-General requesting that Suhail Shaheen,
its spokesman in Qatar, be accredited as the country's permanent representative to the UN.
At the same time, he also asked to be allowed to address the annual UN
General Assembly - the gathering of senior political figures from the member states.
So, what happened? In short, the request came too late.
While the application for accreditation was submitted to the Secretary General,
the UN, as an organization, doesn't and can't
recognise states - and certainly isn't in the business of recognising governments.
Instead, its members choose whether to accredit the representative of the state;
thereby indirectly acknowledging the administration sending the official.
Specifically, it's handled by the nine-member Credentials Committee,
which is currently made up of the Bahamas, Bhutan,
Chile, China, Namibia, Russia, Sierra Leone, Sweden and the United States.
The next meeting of the Committee will be in October or November,
and this could well give us the first indication of whether the Taliban will be accepted.
In the meantime, the representative of the previous regime, Ghulam Isaczai,
officially appears to remain in place as Afghanistan's representative at the UN.
Meanwhile, UN accreditation will also be important in another way.
If the Taliban is effectively accepted as the government of Afghanistan,
it'll then have the right to change the name of the country at the UN.
As this isn't subject to a vote by members, but is a sovereign right of member states,
the accreditation decision will almost certainly see the country become
the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan - the Taliban's name for the country.
In the meantime, if wider international recognition, including accreditation to the UN,
is conditional on adhering to standards, then the initial signs are not looking positive.
Despite early claims that it has changed,
the Taliban already seems to be falling back into its old ways.
Already, there appears to have been a dramatic rolling back of women's rights
and the harsh punishments appear to have returned, even for minor transgressions.
However, unlike its previous period in control,
this time the question of recognition will inevitably have to be considered
by the international community, or at least remain on the table.
For a start, while the Taliban of the 1990s was seen as a horrific aberration,
it's now understood that it's here to stay - at least for the foreseeable future.
Moreover, over the course of recent years, many countries - not least
of all the United States have openly engaged with the Taliban.
It may not be recognised, but has long since ceased to be shunned.
But there are other reasons for keeping open the possibility of recognition.
As noted by the UN Secretary General, and by the European Union's foreign policy chief,
recognition may be the most powerful way of moderating the Taliban's behaviour.
Then there's the humanitarian dimension.
There are already signs that Afghanistan is on the verge of a crisis,
with reports of extreme poverty and food shortages.
The international community may have little choice but to engage
with the Taliban if it's to help the millions of Afghans now at severe risk.
Of course, this needn't amount to recognition - there's plenty
of room to engage without recognition.
But the Taliban may well make such help conditional on formal acceptance;
although it has to be emphasised that there's no immediate sign that this will happen.
The question of government recognition is becoming a
real issue in international relations once again.
Having fallen out of fashion, the collapse of Afghanistan to the Taliban - a group
legendary for its brutality, and with a proven track record of undermining international peace
and security - has opened a real debate about whether, when and how it should be recognised.
For the moment, the international consensus seems to be wait and see.
No one wants to be the first to give it legitimacy.
However it's also clear that the question isn't going to go away.
I hope you found that interesting. If so, here are some more videos you might find useful.
Thanks so much for watching and see you in the next video.