The 25th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit opened in Tianjin on Sunday, bringing together leaders and senior representatives from 20 countries and 10 international organizations but significantly, the Taliban regime in Kabul was excluded from the high-profile gathering.
The two-day summit, concluding on Monday, comes as the Afghan Taliban continue to tout China and Russia as their “strategic allies.” Yet, despite repeated attempts to court regional legitimacy, no invitation was extended to the group that seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021. The decision underscores the international community’s refusal to recognize or endorse the Taliban’s hardline rule.
Afghanistan previously held observer status in the SCO, but that position has been left dormant since the Taliban’s takeover. Their absence from Tianjin reflects the growing unease among regional stakeholders, who remain deeply concerned about the regime’s refusal to uphold basic rights and its failure to address transnational security threats.
The Taliban’s diplomatic isolation has only deepened in recent months. In June, the UN Security Council denied Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi a travel exemption, blocking his participation in meetings in Pakistan and India. The move was hailed by Afghan rights defenders and international human rights bodies as a necessary step to prevent the normalization of a government that has dismantled women’s rights, silenced dissent, and clamped down on freedoms.
SCO Secretary-General Zhang Ming has confirmed that Afghanistan will feature prominently in a separate consultative session in Tajikistan in the coming weeks. However, analysts note that member states remain divided on how to approach Kabul. The Taliban’s repressive policies, coupled with their inability to control extremist violence, have kept the SCO’s engagement limited and conditional.
Adding to the concern, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev recently warned of growing threats emanating from Afghanistan, including terrorism and drug trafficking. He stressed Moscow’s support for reactivating an SCO “contact group” to structure dialogue with Kabul, but only under strict counterterrorism and security guarantees — conditions the Taliban have consistently failed to meet.
Since regaining power, the Taliban have faced mounting criticism for barring women from education and employment, enforcing draconian restrictions on civil society, and excluding political rivals from governance. Travel bans and sanctions on senior leaders remain in place, and with the exception of Russia, no country has formally recognized their regime.
Observers say the Taliban’s exclusion from the SCO summit sends a powerful message: regional powers, even those open to engagement, are unwilling to legitimize a government that has turned Afghanistan into a pariah state. The Taliban’s failure to gain a seat at the table, analysts argue, reflects not only their diplomatic isolation but also the deep mistrust their oppressive policies have generated across the region.
