Members of Taliban delegation during the multilateral peace talks on Afghanistan in Moscow

NEW DELHI: Russia and the Taliban seemed to have scored some PR 'victories' with Friday's meeting in Moscow on the future of Afghanistan, which brought the Taliban to another international negotiating table. For India, the event served to bring out from the closet a significant shift in its policy vis-a-vis the Taliban as it for the first time agreed to share a room with them, something that was anathema until recently.

New Delhi though made it clear its participation was 'non-official' as it sent former diplomats to the meeting. After the meeting, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said, "Afghanistan's problems can only be settled politically, through the attainment of national accord and with the involvement of all parties to the conflict. We hope that responsible politicians will not be guided by personal or group considerations but by the interests of the people of Afghanistan." The last remark is being seen by Indian observers as indicating that Russia would try to resist Pakistan's machinations.

The last such meeting by Russia had to be called off at the eleventh hour because the Afghan government had refused to be present. This time Moscow had prepared better, agreeing to open the meeting to even non-government representatives.

Indian and US representatives stayed silent, but later Moscow asked the Indian government to play a more active role next time.

The importance of the Moscow Format meeting was mainly in its occurrence, and broad-based acknowledgement of the need for a political solution in Afghanistan to bring 17 years of fighting to an end. Although Russia said there would be another iteration no specific dates were announced. In fact, the Afghan government, in a post meeting statement, attempted to distance itself from the Moscow Format, saying, the High Peace Council was participating "in its own capacity as a national but non-government institution".

At the meeting, the Taliban representatives, led by Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai stuck to their demands that foreign troops should leave Afghanistan first.