512 Civilians Killed in Taliban-Pakistan Border Clashes Over One Year

The Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) has 28 member states, covering around 90 per cent of Asia’s territory and population.

Its members include China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Russia, Türkiye, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Palestine and the Central Asian countries.

This year’s summit is being hosted in Baku by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

Azerbaijan’s presidential office said heads of state and government from participating countries arrived at the summit on Thursday.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog also travelled to Baku to attend the meeting. Israel, like Afghanistan, is a full member of CICA.

Taliban efforts to restore Afghanistan’s participation in CICA

The Taliban has sought in recent months to increase Afghanistan’s participation in CICA activities.

On 8 July this year, Mohammad ur-Rahman Rahmani, chargé d’affaires of the Taliban embassy in Kazakhstan, met CICA Secretary-General Kairat Sarybay at the organisation’s headquarters.

Bakhtar News Agency, which is controlled by the Taliban, reported at the time that the two discussed Afghanistan’s membership, greater participation in CICA meetings and activities, and Afghanistan’s role in regional cooperation.

CICA says Afghanistan’s seat remains reserved

CICA Secretary-General Kairat Sarybay has previously said that although an Afghan delegation has stopped attending the organisation’s meetings, Afghanistan remains a full member and its place is reserved.

In 2023, he said Afghanistan’s delegation was not participating in CICA events but that the country’s membership would continue.

The CICA secretary-general described Afghanistan as a country with significant influence on Central Asian security and said member states should ensure that terrorist threats do not originate from Afghan territory and that the country does not become a haven for terrorist groups.

Despite the absence of a Taliban delegation, CICA has maintained contacts concerning Afghanistan in recent years. In August 2025, the CICA secretariat held its first informal consultative meeting on engagement with Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s last participation in a CICA summit

Afghanistan’s last confirmed participation in a CICA summit was on 15 June 2019.

Abdullah Abdullah, chief executive of the former Afghan government, represented Afghanistan at the fifth CICA summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

Following the collapse of the former government, Afghanistan had no representative at the sixth CICA summit in Astana in 2022.

In the final list of participating delegations, Afghanistan was listed first among the member states, but the section for the name and position of its representative was left blank.

Despite Afghanistan having no representative, the country’s situation has remained among the issues discussed at CICA meetings over the past five years.

What is CICA?

CICA is a multilateral framework for dialogue and cooperation among Asian countries. The initiative to establish it was proposed by then-Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev at the UN General Assembly in 1992.

Its first meeting of foreign ministers was held in 1999, and its first summit took place in 2002. CICA’s permanent secretariat is based in Astana, Kazakhstan.

The organisation focuses on issues including security, counterterrorism, trade, transit, energy, the environment, technology and economic cooperation. Its decisions are made by consensus among member states.

UNAMA published its quarterly report on the human rights situation in Afghanistan on Thursday, 15 October, covering the period from July to September 2026.

The mission said it documented more than 50 cases in which women were detained, held or warned over what the Taliban considers violations of its hijab rules.

Most of the detentions took place in Herat, where, according to UNAMA, the chador remains the mandatory form of dress for women.

The mission also recorded cases in Kabul and Badakhshan.

In one case, UNAMA said morality police detained a 13-year-old girl for allegedly failing to comply with the hijab rules. She was held overnight and released the following day after her father intervened.

On 10 July, morality police in Herat city also detained 10 women who were not wearing chadors. They were held until family guardians and local representatives pledged that the women would comply with the hijab rules in future.

Saif-ul-Islam Khyber, spokesman for the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, confirmed on 27 September that women and girls had been detained in Herat and Kabul over their clothing and described non-compliance with the hijab rules as a very serious offence.

In another interview, he said that, in the Taliban’s view, a woman who is aware of the hijab rules but does not comply with them is considered an offender.

UNAMA also documented cases in which women were denied access to healthcare facilities or markets because they were not accompanied by a mahram, or male guardian.

According to UNAMA, on 8 August in Parwan, morality police prevented two women from entering a healthcare facility because they did not have a mahram with them.

On 17 August in Helmand, a woman was similarly denied access to a market because she was unaccompanied by a mahram.

During the same period, Taliban institutions issued official messages telling women to remain at home and obey their husbands.

In a sermon prepared for Friday prayers on 7 August, the Taliban’s Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs said women should obey their husbands, remain at home and not leave without their husbands’ permission.

The visit comes as relations between Moscow and the Taliban continue to expand. Russia formally recognised the Taliban government in July 2025 after removing the group from its list of banned organisations.

Since then, Moscow has emphasised the importance of expanding political, economic and security cooperation with the Taliban.

Naryshkin is among the senior Russian officials who supported closer relations with the Taliban even before Moscow formally recognised its government.

At a conference on Afghanistan in Baku in April 2025, he praised the Taliban’s governance and said international recognition of its government was inevitable.

At the same meeting, the Russian intelligence chief accused Western countries of seeking to prolong instability in Afghanistan by keeping Afghan assets frozen and providing intelligence support to Taliban opponents.

On 18 October 2025, on the sidelines of a meeting of intelligence and security chiefs from Commonwealth of Independent States countries in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Naryshkin also expressed opposition to the establishment of foreign military bases in Afghanistan.

He said Afghanistan had always attracted the attention of international actors, but Russia’s position was clear: Afghanistan should remain an independent country without foreign military bases. He described this as being in the interests of regional countries and, above all, the Afghan people.

In June 2024, Naryshkin also said the Taliban was the only force capable of controlling Afghanistan’s territory.

He has previously praised the Taliban’s efforts against Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), saying the authorities in Afghanistan were making extensive efforts to combat the group.

Naryshkin’s visit to Kabul comes as Russia continues to express concern about security threats originating in Afghanistan, particularly the activities of extremist groups and the risk of instability spreading into Central Asia.

Moscow has repeatedly warned about the activities of ISKP in Afghanistan and called for greater regional cooperation to counter terrorist threats.

Shahriari is a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission.

He said Afghanistan has no access to international waters and that the land could be made available to the Afghan side to import goods through Chabahar port and transport them through Iranian territory.

He stressed that any such arrangement would preserve Iran’s territorial sovereignty and would not amount to transferring Iranian territory.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei recently stressed that transferring Iranian territory to another country was not possible and said claims to that effect were the result of a misunderstanding.

He said the issue under discussion concerned possible ways of helping landlocked countries gain access to ports and international waters and that no formal proposal existed to transfer Iranian land or territory to Afghanistan.

Baghaei also said discussions about transferring sovereignty or handing over part of Iranian territory to Afghanistan had no factual basis, adding that Tehran was only considering ways to facilitate Afghan trade and investment in Chabahar.

Shahriari’s remarks have once again brought the issue of Afghanistan’s presence and investment at Chabahar port to the centre of political debate in Iran.

The issue had previously sparked controversy. On 9 October, Iranian MP Mohsen Zangeneh, who travelled to Kabul as part of a parliamentary delegation, said around 10 hectares of land at Chabahar port and more than 100 hectares in the port’s free zone had been designated for Afghan investment.

His remarks drew widespread reaction in Iranian media and on social networks, with some interpreting them as suggesting that part of Iranian territory would be handed over to Afghanistan.

Zangeneh later walked back his initial comments, explaining that he had not meant a transfer of ownership or sovereignty over Iranian territory.

He said the proposal was instead intended to provide facilities for Afghan investment and to develop transit infrastructure, including a dry port, in Chabahar.

Chabahar port has in recent years become one of Afghanistan’s most important routes to international waters.

Its importance has grown particularly amid increasing border and trade tensions between the Taliban and Pakistan, while Taliban officials have repeatedly stressed expanding the use of the route for trade and the transit of goods.

Before the crossings were closed, annual trade between Afghanistan and Pakistan was estimated at around $2.35 billion.

Mujahid told state television on Tuesday that Afghanistan’s import and export needs were now being met through Iran and Central Asian countries.

Following border clashes between the Taliban and Pakistan in October 2025, the main crossings between the two countries, including Torkham and Spin Boldak, were closed, forcing Afghan traders to move goods through alternative routes.

According to a World Bank report, 48 per cent of Afghanistan’s imports in August this year arrived through Central Asian routes and 46 per cent through Iran, while Pakistan’s share fell to almost zero.

Figures from the Taliban’s Ministry of Industry and Commerce show that Afghanistan’s trade with the five Central Asian countries reached $2.62 billion in 2025, up 45 per cent from the previous year.

During that period, Afghanistan’s imports from Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan rose by 43 per cent, while exports to those countries increased by 77 per cent. However, part of this growth occurred before the closure of the Pakistani border.

According to the Taliban’s Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Afghanistan’s trade with Central Asia reached $1.278 billion in the first five months of 2026, including $1.204 billion in imports and $74 million in exports.

By contrast, the value of Afghan exports to other countries through the Wagah crossing and Pakistani ports fell from $454 million in the 2025 financial year to $7 million in the 2026 financial year.

Before the border closures, direct trade between Afghanistan and Pakistan was estimated at at least $6.45 million a day, equivalent to around $2.35 billion a year.

The World Bank says the continued closure of Pakistan’s crossings has reduced Afghanistan’s food exports and almost halted coal exports.

Textile exports, however, have increased, with some shipments being transported to China through Central Asia.