Taliban asks Britain for help in first face-to-face talks

Taliban leaders said they were seeking formal diplomatic relations and appealed to Britain for help releasing billions of dollars in frozen overseas Afghan government assets in their first meeting with senior UK officials since the fall of Kabul.

The request came at a meeting in the Afghan capital between senior British diplomats and top Taliban officials on Tuesday, the first face-to-face talks since the end of the evacuation of UK diplomatic and military personnel from Kabul in August.

It came the same day as the Islamist group was accused of massacring 13 members of the Hazaras, a persecuted Shia minority group, and photographs emerged of three men hanged from diggers in Herat by the Taliban.

Sir Simon Gass, Boris Johnson’s special representative on Afghanistan, flew into the country for meetings with Taliban deputy prime ministers Abdul Ghani Baradar and Abdul Salam Hanafi and acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on Tuesday, the Foreign Office said.

He was accompanied by Dr Martin Longden, the charge d’affairs of the British mission to Afghanistan in Doha. Britain closed its embassy in Kabul and evacuated all staff to Qatar at the end of August.

The Foreign Office said the delegation discussed how Britain could help Afghanistan address a deepening humanitarian crisis, terrorism and the need for safe passage for those who want to leave the country.

"They also raised the treatment of minorities and the rights of women and girls," a British government spokesman said.

"The (UK) government continues to do all it can to ensure safe passage for those who wish to leave, and is committed to supporting the people of Afghanistan."

Abdul Qahar Balkhi, the Taliban's foreign ministry spokesman, said the meeting "focused on detailed discussions about reviving diplomatic relations between both countries".

He added that Afghanistan's foreign minister wanted Britain to "begin a new chapter of constructive relations".

"We are on good terms with the UK and the world," Mr Baradar told Sir Simon, according to a Taliban read out of the meeting.

“We want relations and call on the international community to hand over Afghanistan's capital to Afghans. Because this is the right of the Afghan people.”

British officials were more cautious, describing the talks “serious and substantial’ but also a cautious trial of the feasibility of pragmatic engagement rather than a breakthrough.

“Unsurprisingly, there are points of difference between us,” Dr Longden wrote on Twitter. “But… it’s right to test if we can engage pragmatically and find common ground.”

The US froze $9.5 billion in Afghan state assets held overseas to prevent it falling into the hands of the Taliban after the collapse of the government in August.

Release of the funds, along with promises of humanitarian assistance, are seen as one of the West’s few levers for extracting concessions from the Taliban regarding the safe passage of refugees and the rights of women.

The group effectively banned girls from returning to secondary education after it seized power, despite promises to the contrary made by the group’s relatively moderate wing, which includes the men the British delegation met on Tuesday.

The meeting came as the Taliban released a former British soldier who had been jailed by the group for a month.

Ben Slater, a former Royal Military Policeman who ran a chain of NGOs in Kabul, was arrested in early September while attempting to evacuate 400 NGO staff over a land border after failing to secure spaces on the air evacuation from Kabul airport.

He left Afghanistan on the same aircraft as Sir Simon and Dr Longden yesterday afternoon.

Britain has said it will not formally recognise the Taliban, which swept to power in a lightning offensive in August, as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

However, it has made clear it will engage with the group on a “pragmatic basis” and has continued to maintain channels of communication with the group through intermediaries including the government of Qatar.

The Sulha Alliance, a charity that works with former Afghan military interpreters, said it “welcomes” UK push for safe passage but urged caution regarding Taliban promises given “continuing threats” experienced by former Afghan staff.

Last week a man who worked as a driver for the British embassy in Kabul was beaten by armed men, in the latest report of apparent reprisals.

The man, who applied to be evacuated in May this year, was assaulted at his home by five men carrying Kalashnikovs, the Guardian reported.

“Safe passage is essential not only for the few hundreds local staff who were called forward to the airport but did not make it on time, but also the over 50 former Afghan interpreters and dependents with UK visas who got trapped in Afghanistan when collecting family members,” the Sulha Alliance said.

“We also appeal to the UK government to expedite the applications of the over 100 local staff who have contacted us but are still waiting to receive and update on their settlement status.”