Written by Shubhajit RoyNew Delhi | October 10, 2025 04:20 AM IST 3 min readAfghan Foreign Minister, Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi, arrives in India on Thursday, October 9. (X/MEAIndia)In a historic first, Taliban-ruled Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi arrived in India on Thursday and he can stay here until October 16.“Warm welcome to Afghan Foreign Minister, Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi on his arrival in New Delhi,” MEA’s official spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal posted on X, with Muttaqi’s photo with joint secretary (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran) Anand Prakash receiving him at the airport. “We look forward to engaging discussions with him on bilateral relations and regional issues,” he said.Muttaqi is visiting India after getting UNSC approval from October 9 to 16. He is scheduled to meet External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday, and will visit Agra and Deoband seminary over the coming days. He will also meet the Afghan community members in India.Read | India sides with Taliban, Pakistan & China, slams Trump bid to take over Bagram baseThis is the first time that a Taliban Foreign Minister is visiting India. It is one of the seismic events in the country’s foreign policy where Delhi is nuancing its position on Taliban.Explained | India sides with Taliban, Pakistan & China, slams Trump bid to take over Bagram baseThe last political-level contact took place in 1999-2000 when then EAM Jaswant Singh was in touch with Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil following the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 to Kandahar in December 1999.Ahead of his visit, on October 7, India joined the Taliban, Pakistan, China and Russia to oppose US president Donald Trump’s plan to take over the Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, in an unusual turn of events. In a sharply worded joint statement by participants of the Moscow Format Consultations on Afghanistan, they said (without mentioning Bagram), “They called unacceptable the attempts by countries to deploy their military infrastructure in Afghanistan and neighboring states, since this does not serve the interests of regional peace and stability.”Ahead of Muttaqi’s visit, South Block faces a diplomatic dilemma: Whether to let the Taliban flag be placed next to the Indian flag when he meets Jaishankar in New Delhi on Friday. India is yet to grant official recognition to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Therefore, it has not allowed the Taliban to fly their flag at the Afghan Embassy.Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 25 years now. Roy joined The Indian Express in October 2003 and has been reporting on foreign affairs for more than 17 years now. Based in Delhi, he has also led the National government and political bureau at The Indian Express in Delhi — a team of reporters who cover the national government and politics for the newspaper. He has got the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award for Excellence in Journalism ‘2016. He got this award for his coverage of the Holey Bakery attack in Dhaka and its aftermath. He also got the IIMCAA Award for the Journalist of the Year, 2022, (Jury’s special mention) for his coverage of the fall of Kabul in August 2021 — he was one of the few Indian journalists in Kabul and the only mainstream newspaper to have covered the Taliban’s capture of power in mid-August, 2021. ... Read MoreStay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd