Five years after reclaiming Kabul, the Taliban have quietly dismantled the wall of their international isolation — not through reform, but through the patient exploitation of competing interests among major powers. India, China, Russia, Iran, and European nations have each found separate reasons to open channels with the regime, trading the leverage of collective pressure for the smaller currencies of migration deals, trade corridors, and strategic positioning. What emerges is an old and melancholy pattern in international affairs: the gradual normalization of the intolerable, not by decision,
Global powers deepen Taliban ties despite human rights concerns
Afghan women and girls systematically denied education and employment; religious minorities persecuted; journalists and activists face repression under Taliban rule.
War & Conflict