By: Mir Ahmad Mashal

Introduction
After twenty years of war, America finally surrendered to the Taliban and left Afghanistan. As a result, the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan collapsed and the Taliban restored their government under the title of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Although America withdrew from Afghanistan through an agreement with the Taliban, apparently the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan was not part of the agreement; Because in the US-Taliban agreement, which is known as the Doha agreement, it was mentioned that after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban must form a coalition government through intra-Afghan negotiations with other parties. This, however, was completely ignored by the Taliban, and the group overthrew the republican system by using force, and formed a unilateral government.

After the establishment of the Islamic Emirate by the Taliban, all countries of the world, and all the internal parties and groups of Afghanistan refused to officially recognize the Taliban government. Although a limited number of countries and most of Afghanistan's neighbors have kept their embassies active in Kabul and some countries have accepted Taliban diplomatic representatives for Afghan embassies in their capital, but no country has officially recognized the Taliban government.

Despite the different views of regional and extra-regional countries towards the Taliban government, they have set some conditions for recognizing the Taliban government, including the formation of an inclusive government, granting political and social rights to women, especially the right to education and work, and respecting the principles of human rights. But on the other hand, the Taliban claims that the current government has the necessary conditions to be accepted as the legitimate government of Afghanistan and the world should interact with it as a legitimate government.

this conflicting positions of the international community and the Taliban have made the recognition of the Taliban government to be pending until now. But this does not mean that there are no relations between the Taliban government and other countries. During this period, by establishing close economic relations with some countries, the Taliban has been able to bypass non-recognition and get out of isolation to some extent. Adopting an economy-oriented foreign policy, planning for the economic visits of Taliban officials, encouraging foreign investors to be present in Afghanistan, signing large economic contracts with foreign parties, and paying attention to regional transit have been among the most important arrangements of the Taliban government in the economic sector.
In the following, each of these cases will be examined and evaluated.

Adopting an economy-oriented foreign policy
Considering the history of the Taliban government in the 1990s, the re-emergence of the group caused concerns, because at that time, the Taliban had made alliances with terrorist groups in their foreign policy. Although the Taliban gradually distanced itself from terrorist groups during its 20-year war, there was still the fear of this group returning to its past approach and colluding with terrorist groups. But contrary to this expectation, the Taliban entered the field of politics and government in Afghanistan in a different way. This time, the Taliban not only refrained from cooperating with any other group, but also took a neutral stance in foreign policy with an economy-oriented approach. Although there is usually a gap between rhetoric and action, the behavior of the Taliban in the past two and a half years has proven that this group is practically committed to the slogan of neutrality and economy-oriented foreign policy - and there is almost no gap between their slogan and action.

Naturally, the adoption of such an approach by the Taliban was warmly welcomed by the international community, especially the neighbors. This approach led some countries to establish close relations with the Taliban government, send their officials to Kabul to expand political and economic relations, and vice versa to invite Taliban officials to visit their country. On the other hand, the seriousness of the Taliban in adopting an economic-oriented foreign policy was to the extent that they created the post of economic deputy for the prime minister, and appointed a powerful person such as Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar - the signatory of the Doha Agreement - to that position.

Economic visits
As required by their economy-oriented foreign policy, Taliban officials made numerous economic-oriented visits to other countries in the last two and a half years. Since the beginning of the Taliban rule in 2021, the economic officials of the Taliban government have made dozens of visits to far and near countries, among which the two visits of Mullah Abdul Ghani, the economic deputy of the prime minister, to Turkey and Iran were the most important ones.

During Mullah Baradar's first visit to Turkey, he met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey. In this meeting, the two sides discussed issues such as strengthening bilateral relations, expanding trade between the two countries, regional connectivity, attracting Turkish investments in Afghanistan, etc. Mullah Baradar's other visit was to Iran. This visit, in which a 30-person delegation accompanied Mullah Baradar, can be considered the biggest foreign visit of the Taliban government in the past two and a half years. In this six-day visit, the economic delegation of the Taliban government managed to sign important economic agreements with Tehran.

In addition to being considered economically important for the Taliban government, these visits are also extremely important from a political point of view, because the UN Security Council has banned senior officials of the Taliban government from traveling in order to isolate them. However, contrary to this decision of the Security Council, the Taliban government is taking steps towards gaining international legitimacy through these visits.

Encouraging foreign investment
Another measure that helps legitimize the Taliban government is attracting foreign investments. In this regard, the Taliban government has done extensive propaganda. Attracting foreign investments is also one of the important goals of Taliban officials in foreign visits. In this context, the Taliban government always assures that it provides complete security for foreign investment and is ready to accept any foreign investment.

During the past two and a half years, this government has taken many measures to attract foreign investment; For example, the creation of a consortium with the participation of several countries, including Iran, Russia and Pakistan. The purpose of creating this consortium is to attract direct investments from foreign countries and companies in the field of energy, infrastructure and mines. According to the Taliban Minister of Trade and Industry, this international consortium has shown interest in issues such as energy, exploitation of mines, construction of another tunnel in the Salang Pass that connects northern Afghanistan to other parts of the country, construction of a dam to transfer water from Panjshir to Kabul, and rebuilding the Kabul-Herat highway.

Another measure is the order of the Taliban leader to form an inter-ministerial committee under the supervision of the economic deputy, in order to further facilitate the investment process. The most important goals of this committee are to implement internal and external investment plans under the supervision of a single entity, to create transparency and speed in the investment process, and to establish effective coordination between investors and relevant ministries. In addition to these, the Taliban Ministry of Trade and Industry has been very active in attracting foreign investment, and has achieved some success in this regard.

Signing large economic contracts with foreign parties
The Taliban's efforts to attract economic investments have resulted in the signing of several large economic contracts. Here, we mention two important cases of these contracts. The first case is the oil extraction contract in the Amu Darya basin. This contract is signed with the Chinese company CPEIC, and it is planned to invest 150 million dollars in the first phase and 540 million dollars in the next three years. The duration of this contract is 25 years. It started with the extraction of 200 tons of oil per day and increased to 20,000 tons per day.

The second case is a set of other large contracts signed between the Taliban government and a number of domestic and foreign companies. The total value of these contracts, which are in the field of iron ore, lead, zinc and gold mining, is about 5.6 billion dollars. The foreign companies that won the auction of these contracts are two Iranian companies, one Turkish company, one British company and one Chinese company. In addition to these big contracts, the Taliban government has signed dozens of other contracts with foreign companies over the past two and a half years, and is negotiating and bargaining with many other companies too.

The entry of foreign companies into Afghanistan, in addition to economic benefits, can also bring political benefits. In fact, the companies involved in Afghanistan will carry out extensive lobbying for official engagement with the Taliban, in order to make the contracts binding in their respective governments. In addition, the entry of a foreign company into Afghanistan usually shows that the country to which that company belongs has a positive view of the Taliban government. Therefore, economic engagement can accelerate the process of official engagement between countries and the Taliban government.

Regional transit
Another important issue that the Taliban government pursues seriously is the regional transit through Afghanistan, which includes two parts: first, the transit of goods by roads and railways, such as the Khawf-Herat railway, the Trans-Afghan railway (which is under negotiation to be built), the railway line known as Panj Mellat, and Wakhan Corridor; And second, energy transit through electricity transmission lines and gas pipelines, such as TAPI, Top and CASA 1000.

Although the discussion about regional transit started in the previous government and it was heavily advertised as one of the important economic programs of Afghanistan, but the Taliban government's view on this issue is different from the previous government. For the previous government, the issue had more a propaganda aspect with domestic consumption, but for the Taliban government, it helps them to get closer to official recognition. This is because interested countries such as Iran, Central Asian countries, China and Pakistan should have a closer political interaction with the Taliban government to facilitate the process of using Afghan soil to connect to their regional goals.

Conclusion
The Taliban government, which is facing a crisis of international legitimacy (for reasons such as coming to power through force, not forming a inclusive government, and violating human rights, especially women's right of education and work), is looking for another way to gain domestic and international legitimacy. This alternative way is to establish economic relations with other countries.

Based on what was said in this article, it can be concluded that this approach has been somewhat effective. Despite being under sanctions, the officials of the Taliban government have made several visits to other countries, by focusing on economic issues. They have signed large economic contracts with foreign companies, and are about to restart gas and electricity transit projects through Afghanistan.

In addition to having economic benefits, these measures can also give functional legitimacy to the Taliban government politically. In fact, these measures can convince the countries that have extensive economic interaction with the Taliban to improve their political engagement with the Taliban government. In this context, it is not out of place to consider the Chinese government's rapprochement with the Taliban as being influenced by the extensive economic interaction of that country with the Taliban government. This is to the extent that during an official ceremony, the President of China accepted the credentials of the Taliban ambassador like the ambassador of an official government; Or that Turkmenistan has communicated with the Taliban government at the level of an official government to accelerate the process of the TAPI project.

Therefore, it can be said that the Taliban government's approach to interacting with other countries through economic issues has been effective, and has been able to increase the countries' political engagement with the Taliban government. However, as long as the Taliban government continues to violate international rules (such as women's rights), it is unlikely that any country, even the countries interacting with the Taliban government, will recognize it. In other words, the Taliban's economic measures are a necessary condition for obtaining recognition from some countries, but it is not a sufficient condition. Therefore, it cannot be expected that the end of the current process of the Taliban will lead to recognition, unless it accepts the legitimate domestic and international demands.

Perhaps this is the reason why some countries consider economic engagement as a way to save the Afghan people, and by arguing that this way does not lead to the recognition of the Taliban government, they increase the depth of their economic interactions.
 
Mir Ahmad Mashal, is a researcher at IESS.