The Supreme Court of Russia will examine expunging the Taliban from the terror record.
Russia’s Supreme Court is to consider a request filed by the country’s Prosecutor General’s Office to decriminalise the Taliban, state-affiliated news agency Interfax reported on Monday.
At a hearing to be held behind closed doors on 17 April, the court will consider a request to “temporarily remove” the radical Islamist movement, which since 2021 has controlled Afghanistan, from Russia’s register of terrorist organisations.
The request follows the recent passing of legislation allowing the removal of a group from Russia’s list of terror organisations if it has “ceased activities aimed at promoting and supporting terrorism”. The law was specifically amended to allow Russia to engage legally with Afghanistan’s de facto leadership, Russian politicians said openly at the time.
Despite it technically being illegal to do so, Russian diplomats, including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, have engaged with Taliban representatives on several occasions since the group’s return to power in Afghanistan, and last year submitted a formal recommendation to Vladimir Putin that he remove the group from the terror list.
Vladimir Putin’s special envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, told state-affiliated broadcaster RTVI in September 2023 that the Taliban had “evolved” as a movement and that the Kremlin did not “consider them terrorists”.
Likewise, prominent Russian officials including Federal Security Service (FSB) chief Alexander Bortnikov have spoken in favour of decriminalising the Taliban, with Bortnikov saying in October that the group “aimed to restore order and maintain stability” in the region.
The Taliban was added to Russia’s list of terrorist organisations in March 2003, based on resolutions by the UN Security Council and Russia’s Supreme Court. In 2021, the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan in its entirety following the hurried exit of US forces, though the group has not been recognised as the legitimate Afghan government by the West.
