RECENTLY, Afghanistan’s neighbours held consultations in the Iranian capital on security and its impact on regional stability, under the Tehran Format. Special representatives on Afghanistan from Pakistan, China, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan participated in the meeting. But the Afghan Taliban declined to attend.
The Tehran Format is not the only regional process which has been initiated for regional consensus building on Afghanistan’s security situation. Since 2014, 10 multilateral platforms have been introduced on various occasions by several regional and extra-regional countries to facilitate coordination and avoid regional and international confrontation on Afghanistan’s security affairs. The most notable among them is the Moscow Format, and keeping in view the Russia-Iran strategic partnership, the Tehran Format is an extended version of the Moscow process.
Pakistan has been an active member of almost all of these regional processes including the two aforementioned, the SCO Contact Group on Afghanistan, the Istanbul Process, the Extended ‘Troika’, etc. For Islamabad, participation in these regional forums has become a central pillar of its Afghan strategy. Pakistan’s decision to participate in regional dialogue forums on Afghanistan, particularly in the Tehran Format, is primarily based on three strategic objectives.
First, Islamabad considers itself the most important stakeholder in Afghanistan’s security and strategic affairs due to the depth, duration, and intensity of its exposure to Afghan instability. Apart from sharing a longest porous border with Afghanistan and hosting millions of Afghan refugees for decades, Pakistan has suffered the most in terms of cross-border infiltration and terror incidents emanating from Afghan soil. Therefore, Islamabad seeks to remain actively engaged in any regional engagement on Afghanistan.
Second, Islamabad uses these regional forums for its global awareness campaign and diplomatic signalling as well as for highlighting its security concerns. This was also evident at the Tehran Format, where Islamabad highlighted how cross-border infiltration and the presence of terrorist groups such as the TTP and BLA on Afghan soil have been creating a security challenge for Pakistan. Primarily, Islamabad wants to prevent its security challenges from being viewed in isolation or being dismissed as unilateral claims. In fact, Islamabad seeks regional and global legitimation of its threat perceptions related to Afghanistan.
Despite human rights violations at home, the Taliban have managed to establish a diplomatic presence in 39 capitals.
Third, Islamabad desires to ‘strategically contain’ the Afghan Taliban in an effort to maximise pressure on the regime for favourable results. For the past two years, the Afghan Taliban have significantly increased their outreach to regional and extra-regional states. Despite well-documented human rights violations, systemic ill treatment of women, and the continued ban on girls’ education, the Taliban regime has succeeded in establishing a diplomatic presence in 39 capitals worldwide. While Russia is the only country to have formally recognised the regime, China, the UAE, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and India have accepted the Taliban’s ambassadors in their capitals.
Islamabad believes that regional outreach has not helped in tearing down the Afghan Taliban’s ties with various terrorist groups. Rather, the measured engagement and sustained humanitarian assistance given by the regional and international community have emboldened the regime to continue its support for its ideological partners. Islamabad wants to form a consensus among Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries to devise a tough strategy, i.e., joint coordinated actions against terrorist safe havens.
However, the Tehran Format failed to forge a joint action plan, as evident in its inability to issue a joint communiqué. This was mainly due to several structural challenges that continue to hinder a cohesive regional approach.
First, regional countries are welcoming Tehran Format-style regional forums, but practically, they are comfortable with engaging the Taliban regime bilaterally to secure their strategic objectives. Although Afghanistan’s immediate neighbours agree that they stand to gain from its stability and lose from its instability, they remain divided on a collective approach to leverage their individual influence for broader regional peace and stability.
Second, the member countries of the Tehran Format can be broadly divided into two camps based on their approaches towards compelling the Taliban to prevent the misuse of Afghan soil. The first camp believes that limited and pragmatic engagement can preserve leverage, facilitate intelligence access, and reduce unmanaged security spillovers. The second camp holds that normalisation without demonstrable compliance erodes leverage and risks legitimising Taliban rule in the absence of meaningful and verifiable concessions. These varied approaches significantly impede the formation of a unified approach, as disputes about engagement versus coercion make achieving an agreement more difficult.
Third, these regional forums, including the Tehran Format, are generally consultative and lack binding legal or institutional mechanisms to enforce decisions. Even when consensus is reached on counterterrorism expectations, there are no credible tools to compel compliance by Afghanistan’s de facto authorities. This has happened when consensus on counterterrorism and the non-use of Afghan territory as a launching pad for attacks was reached among regional states at various multilateral forums, but the Afghan regime either refused to participate, disengaged, or selectively ignored commitments. The Taliban regime seems comfortable building bilateral engagements with regional and extra-regional countries, while it avoids commitments at multilateral forums.
Despite these obstacles, Islamabad is determined to continue advancing its security concerns and influencing regional discourse through forums like the Tehran Format. In this context, Pakistan needs to advocate for more regular and organised Tehran-style meetings by using its strong ties with Iran. The Tehran Format has the potential to become a venue that produces tangible outcomes, such as coordinated actions against terrorist safe havens and improved monitoring of terrorist movement inside Afghanistan.
In order to establish a more coordinated regional strategy, Pakistan should simultaneously advocate for the revival of the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group and connect its efforts with the Tehran Format. Islamabad must understand that building regional consensus may be a lengthy process, but it is far more effective and sustainable than relying on quick fixes.
The writer is an analyst of South Asian affairs. The views expressed are his own.
Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2025
