US Reviewing Taliban's Classification as 'Foreign Terrorist Organisation'

'That designation ultimately will be based on a holistic approach to what we think our future policy is going to be with regards to Afghanistan,' Rubio has said.

The Wire Staff

'That designation ultimately will be based on a holistic approach to what we think our future policy is going to be with regards to Afghanistan,' Rubio has said.

us reviewing taliban s classification as foreign terrorist organisation

A file image of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Photo: AP/PTI.

New Delhi: The United State's secretary of state Marco Rubio has said that the classification of the Taliban as a 'foreign terrorist organisation' is now under review.

This report comes at a time when India, along with China and Pakistan, has been seen making outreach efforts towards Afghanistan's rulers.

Rubio was reported as having told the House Foreign Affairs Committee during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 21, “I believe that classification is now, once again, under review.”

“We’ll have some decisions to make,” Rubio is reported to have said in response to a question from Representative Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee. “That designation ultimately will be based on a holistic approach to what we think our future policy is going to be with regards to Afghanistan.”

A day ago, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a “comprehensive review” of the United States’s military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, something which paved the way for the Taliban takeover.

Earlier in May, in the first ministerial level-contact between India and the Taliban government, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar spoke with acting Afghan foreign minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi and appreciated Kabul’s dismissal of the Pakistani claim that India had launched missile strikes on Afghan territory.

As part of efforts to expand regional engagement, Amir Khan Muttaqi discussed the expansion of bilateral relations, strengthening economic cooperation, and removing trade barriers.

A day ago, Afghanistan new channel TOLO News reported that Amir Khan Muttaqi, the acting minister of foreign affairs of the Islamic Emirate – the official name that the Taliban government goes by – met with the Chinese and Pakistani foreign ministers Wang Yi and Ishaq Dar, respectively, in Beijing.

Topics such as enhancing diplomatic engagement, strengthening cooperation, launching joint infrastructure projects, developing China's Belt and Road Initiative, and extending the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan were discussed, according to the Pakistani foreign ministry.

This article went live on May twenty-second, two thousand twenty five, at fifty-six minutes past eleven in the morning.

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