The process of making Afghanistan an independent economic entity that can work constructively within globally accepted economic standards and formats will require addressing pressing security issues as well as strengthening regional partnerships and cooperation. In the long term, this will not only benefit the people of Afghanistan but also its neighbors, as well as the Central Asian republics, who still need to realize their full transit and transport potential to best respond to the world’s changing needs in a new geopolitical environment. While there is currently emphasis on increasing bilateral trade, this in itself will not cure the economic and other problems ailing Afghanistan. Strategic infrastructure projects, in particular, will play a key role in ensuring the long-term economic stability of this country. The Taliban Government is already reaching out to regional neighbors in a new way since it regained power in 2021. Some of the existing regional cooperation structures can be molded to provide a platform for dialogue and collaboration with Afghanistan. Modern realities dictate to the region the need to quickly overcome existing differences in intra-regional relations and create a new model. To this end, the states in the region surrounding Afghanistan should build a system of coordinated and cohesive measures and approaches with security as a key consideration, bringing Afghanistan into the fold to serve mutual interests through regional development. Rapprochement or a de facto relationship with regional states? Recently, the Taliban Government in Afghanistan has been fairly successful in developing cooperation with neighboring countries. It seems that, as opposed to focusing solely on isolation from the West, the current regime has chosen to start actively establishing ties with states in the region, placing the main emphasis of their foreign policy on regional governments who are more interested in pragmatism than ideological prerequisites when it comes to their affairs with Afghanistan. If, for Pakistan and Iran, various forms of cooperation with Afghanistan are historically understandable, then for the Central Asian republics, the Taliban’s openness to broader dialogue, along with the promotion of mutual economic interests, allows for the prospect of transforming the whole region into a fully-fledged, self-sufficient collective unit within the larger global system. To achieve this, Central Asian countries must still overcome narratives of the past, develop common approaches (including through regional formats), and practically see Afghanistan as a genuine partner. In the meantime, states in the region are largely acting intuitively rather than with a calculated strategic depth, or strictly weighing the benefits of building trade relations with Afghanistan’s new authorities. That said, regional players still follow different vectors and act according to their own circumstances despite a common desire to see a stable neighbor in Afghanistan. For Islamabad, for instance, the main trigger in relations with Kabul is the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. Tehran, on the other hand, seeks to protect the Shiite minority in Afghanistan and see their participation in an inclusive government, but at the same time, builds dialogue with the Taliban, including on border security...
