Who is Taliban minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, set to visit India?

Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi, Foreign Minister of Afghanistan's Taliban government, is scheduled to visit India next week after receiving the travel clearance from the UNSC.

Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), confirmed Muttaqi’s visit to New Delhi from October 9 to October 16.

This is the first time that a Taliban minister will visit India.

"All of you would have seen the exemption that has been granted by the UN Security Council Committee for the travel of Afghan Foreign Minister to New Delhi from October 9 to 16. This public information is there in the public domain. We shall keep you updated in this regard," Jaiswal said.

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Who is Amir Khan Muttaqi?

Muttaqi, who became the Foreign Minister of the Taliban government after the militant group took over Kabul, has been a long-serving member of the hardline Islamist group.

Muttaqi is the son of Haji Nadir Khan. He was born in 1970 in Zarghun area of Helmand province in Afghanistan. His family hails from Paktia, and then relocated to Helmand.

Later, along with his family, he moved to Pakistan during the peak Soviet War.

In Pakistan, he pursued religious and traditional sciences in various educational institutions that were operated for Afghan refugees. He has been an active member of the Taliban since the 1990s.

According to his biography on Afghanistan's government website, Muttaqi has held several significant positions, including being "a leading negotiator" for the country. He conducted talks in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, facilitated by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

Shortly after the Taliban seized Kandahar in 1994, he was appointed Director General of the radio station in Kandahar while also being a member of the Taliban’s High Council.

In July 1995, he was appointed Director General of Information and Culture in Kandahar. In October 1996, following the Taliban’s conquest of Kabul, he became the acting Minister of Information and Culture and the official spokesperson.

In 1999, he served as Director General of Administrative Affairs. In March 2000, he was appointed Minister of Education, a position he held until the onset of the American invasion of Afghanistan.

According to a report in New York Times, Muttaqi was one of the Taliban leaders who reportedly held back-channel talks with American officials over the years.

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“During the two decades of the Taliban insurgency, he helped shape the group’s strategy for propaganda and psychological warfare, before serving as chief of staff to the supreme leader and as a member of the Taliban political delegation in Qatar,” the report noted.

Muttaqi served as the head of the Taliban’s Invitation and Guidance Commission that persuaded many Afghan army personnel and police forces to surrender months before the Taliban took control of Kabul on August 15, 2021, the report added.

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What is his agenda in India?

He is set to meet S Jaishankar and hold discussions on various issues, including future bilateral ties, counter-terrorism efforts and trade.

India has yet to recognise the Taliban government. However, the diplomats from both ends have been in talks over several months. This will be the second interaction between two foreign ministers, but the first in person.

Earlier, the two had a telephone conversation on May 15, after ‘Operation Sindoor’. On January 8, India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri met Muttaqi in Dubai.

The Taliban leader tried to visit India in September. However, his visit was postponed due to UN sanctions against him, according to reports.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has imposed sanctions against all the Taliban leaders, and they must obtain a waiver to travel abroad. Muttaqi has been under UN sanctions since 2001. Muttaqi got the clearance from the UNSC on September 30.

“On 30 September 2025, the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1988 (2011) approved an exemption to the travel ban for Amir Khan Motaqi to visit New Delhi, India, from 9 to 16 October 2025,” a statement by the UN said.

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India’s relationship with Taliban govt

India previously never had any friendly relationship with the Taliban. After the Taliban violently assumed power in Afghanistan, many countries, including India, maintained diplomatic engagement, considering the human rights crisis in Afghanistan.

Since the Taliban seized Kabul, India has been helping the Afghans by providing humanitarian assistance. It has dispatched several shipments of wheat, medicines, pesticides, COVID-19 vaccines, hygiene kits for drug de-addiction programmes, winter clothing and stationery kits.

In the January meeting, the two sides also agreed to strengthen cricket cooperation and promote the use of Iran’s Chabahar port for supporting trade and commercial activities in the January meeting. It is to be noted that India has been investing in the Chabahar port for years to bypass Pakistan’s Karachi and Gwadar ports to expand its trade activities.

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Historically, India has taken an anti-Taliban stand. During the peak civil war, India had closed its consulates in Afghanistan in the 1990s and reopened them in 2002 after the war ended.