A new meeting of Afghanistan's neighbours (Iran, China, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Russia) has been recently organised in Teheran by Iranian Foreign Ministry, to discuss the current situation in the war-ravaged country. The previous meeting took place on September 8, 2021, by video-link, at the same initiative of the Iranian authorities. Representatives of Taliban government "have not been invited, yet", according to the Afghan broadcaster Tolo News. Iran and Afghanistan share a nearly 1,000 km long border, and Iran has key security interests there.
Iran's population is majority Shiite, but Sunni minorities live predominantly in the area near the border with Afghanistan and they have long complained about discrimination by Iranian rulers. Furthermore, this region is the poorest and least developed in Iran.
Since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in mid-August, Teheran has called them to form an inclusive and stable government, which is vital for its own national security.
However, experts consider that Iran has miscalculated the situation in Afghanistan, as the Taliban leadership structures are actually multilayered, complicated and opaque, that makes negotiations with them difficult and unforeseeable.
Within the Taliban, the radical wing, including the Haqqani Network (opposing Shiite Hazara minority), seems to have prevailed, and Sirajuddin Haqqani, for example, has become Afghanistan's new interior minister. He is believed to be the mastermind of numerous suicide bombing over the past 15 years and is on a US Federal Bureau of Investigation wanted list. Lately, Haqqani offered economic assistance to several families of Taliban suicide bombers.
On the other hand, the Taliban are driving members of the Hazara ethnic and religious minority away from their villages in northern Afghanistan, in order to seize their properties. These actions has further exacerbated differences over how Teheran should deal with the Taliban. Thus, Iranian leaders are still debating whether the Afghan Islamic fundamentalist group has really changed its ways since the last time it was in power over 20 years ago.