News Desk

NEW DELHI: India has established communication channels with the Taliban leaders including Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, HTML reported.

According to the reports by the prominent Indian media outlet, HTML, this move has been described as a ‘signifiant’ mark shifting from Delhi’s current position of not engaging with the Taliban leaders.

The outreach is undertaken by the senior security officials and is limited only to those Taliban leaders who are said to be ‘nationalist’ and are outside the sphere of Pakistan and Iran influence.

The report also suggests that the back-channeling between the Taliban leaders and India have been underway for some months, however, no meeting between them have been so far confirmed.

This comes as India, a prominent neighboring country to Afghanistan did not have contacts with the Taliban in the last 20 years, however, Pakistan, another neighboring country of Afghanistan have had a strong relationship and connections with the Taliban for the past 3 decades.

Pakistan, having a major influence over Taliban, is counted as key player in the Afghanistan peace process.