Amir Khan Muttaqi, the foreign minister of Afghanistan, has been granted permission by the UN Security Council to visit New Delhi, India, from October 9–16, 2025, despite being prohibited from traveling. This choice was made in accordance with Security Council resolution 1988 (2011), which sanctions top Taliban commanders but permits exceptions on an individual basis for official obligations or critical humanitarian situations.
Despite the international community’s ongoing concerns, the exemption highlights the delicate diplomatic interactions India is anticipated to have with the Taliban government.
This decision comes after earlier in 2025, when similar exemptions were granted. Another Taliban official under sanctions, Khairullah Khairkhwah, was allowed by the UN to go to Moscow in July for immediate medical care.
Abdul Salam Hanafi was authorized to travel to Doha, Qatar, in August for medical reasons as well. These examples demonstrate how the UN maintains a balance between rigorous enforcement and practical engagement by making selective concessions in response to particular demands, even when sanctions are still in effect.
The timing of Muttaqi’s trip to India is significant because Afghanistan is currently experiencing serious internal problems. In addition to recent natural calamities and political repression, the nation has been dealing with a worsening humanitarian situation.
The need for international humanitarian assistance and collaboration has increased since the most recent 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan. International aid is nonetheless made more difficult by the Taliban’s domestic policies, especially those that target women and civil society organizations.
On the social front, authorities in Afghanistan shut down the internet and phone services for 72 hours, resulting in a communications blackout that affected the whole country. Global internet monitor Netblocks claims that the blackout isolated the entire country, which is unprecedented during Taliban administration.
The claimed rationale was a crackdown on “immoral activities,” but the effects were far-reaching, stifling public opposition, interrupting online educational initiatives, and interfering with humanitarian assistance. It took three days of isolation before services were restored.
Under Taliban directives, women continue to be the group most negatively impacted. The leadership has been restricting women’s rights in the areas of work, education, and social engagement since 2021. In addition to previous restrictions on women working in NGOs and international organizations, female employees of the United Nations were prohibited from entering offices in September 2025.
In late 2022, universities closed to women, while girls had already been prohibited from attending high schools since 2021. The last remaining channels for online education and international connectivity that Afghan women had grown to rely on are further threatened by the recent widespread internet outage.
We will be closely monitoring India’s role in hosting Muttaqi during this challenging time. Despite not publicly acknowledging the Taliban government, New Delhi has kept open some lines of engagement, mostly for regional security and humanitarian issues.
India may use this visit as a chance to strike a compromise between its obligations to provide humanitarian aid and its long-standing security worries, especially those related to cross-border terrorism that originates in Afghanistan.
