A Taliban delegation will not attend the upcoming meeting of the Moscow format conference, according to Special Russian Presidential Representative to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov. “It is only for members of the Moscow format,” Kabulov has said.
The previous meeting of the Moscow format conference was held on October 20, 2021. Representatives from Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Iran, Pakistan, China, Turkmenistan, India, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan attended the meeting.
The Taliban had sent a high-level delegation led by the group’s Deputy Prime Minister, Abdul Sallam Hanafi, to the meeting.
In the upcoming meeting of Moscow format scheduled for mid-November, Kabulov has already ensured that the Taliban will not attend it.
“The Taliban delegation will not take part [in the meeting], it is only for members of the Moscow format,” the Russian News Agency, TASS, quoted Kabulov as saying.
The Moscow format is a mechanism for Afghanistan-related issues established in 2017. Since the forum’s launch, there have been several rounds of discussions related to Afghanistan.
In its last meeting on October 2021, the attendees said in a joint statement that the Taliban must improve their style of governance and form “a truly inclusive government that adequately reflects the interests of all major ethnopolitical forces in the country.”
