A Taliban delegation visited Tehran last week for political discussions, though it isn’t clear if any agreement was reached.
A visit by the anti-Shia Taliban to the capital of Shiism might sound more than odd. But the Taliban have actually visited Tehran twice before.
While the Islamic Republic and the Taliban are definitely not friends, they do have some shared interests. Making life difficult for American troops in Afghanistan is one of the clearest shared interests.
US officials have said Iran has provided limited military supplies to the Taliban for about a decade—not enough for the Taliban to re-take Afghanistan, but enough for them to make trouble and stir the pot.
The visit to Tehran, however, was not necessarily any decision-making or arms-trading session. It is quite possible the two sides just wanted to exchange ideas and analyses, especially about the rise of the Islamic State, which is a threat to both Iran and the Taliban. A number of Taliban groups have in recent months shifted their allegiance to the Islamic State.
The visit was denied by Iranian officials when they were asked about it. But several Iranian newspapers reported the visit openly. And the Taliban confirmed they had a delegation in Tehran led by Mohammad Tayyab Agha and comprised of Taliban officers from the group’s political office in Qatar,
The Taliban even acted like a state and issued a statement saying the two parties discussed a number of issues, including global, regional and Islamic issues, the current situation in Afghanistan and the status of Afghan refugees in Iran.
As for the Taliban’s anti-Shia tendencies, they have tended to rein them in since being ousted from power in 2001. The group has had more important fish to fry and has had no need of inciting Iran. Just last month, the Taliban referred to Afghanistan’s often-oppressed Shia minority as “our Hazara countrymen.”
