In Geopolitics Today: Monday, October 10th
US and Taliban Officials Meet for Talks, Armenia and Azerbaijan Agree to EU Military Mission, and other stories.
US and Taliban Officials Meet for Talks
Senior US intelligence officials have reportedly held an in-person meeting with leaders of the Taliban. The CIA Deputy Director and the US State Department's Special Representative for Afghanistan met with Taliban members in the Qatari capital of Doha, where the two sides are said to have discussed counter-terrorism and a prisoner exchange.
The meeting demonstrates that the United States remains willing to communicate with the Taliban despite concerns over the Taliban's domestic policy. The participation of high-level intelligence officials suggests the meeting involved discussions on extremist threats and violent conflict. The Taliban has vowed that they would not harbour terrorists in a bid to establish the Islamic Emirate as a legitimate independent state. Washington maintains an interest in preventing Afghanistan from creating an environment that would allow anti-US terrorist groups to rebuild their ranks.
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Belarus and Russia to Jointly Deploy a Regional Military Group
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said Belarus and Russia will deploy a joint military task force in response to what Minsk called an aggravation of tensions on the country’s western borders. Lukashenko said the two countries had started pulling forces together after an explosion damaged a bridge linking Russia proper to the Crimean Peninsula.
Lukashenko did not specify where the troops would be deployed, but stated that the intelligence he has received points to plans by Ukraine to attack infrastructure in Belarus. This “rapidly-changing situation,” Lukashenko argues, compels him to strengthen his country's security. Belarus relies financially and politically on its key ally Russia, a dependency which may yet see Minsk drawn more directly into the war in Ukraine in the coming months.
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Armenia and Azerbaijan Agree to EU Military Mission
The European Union is positioning itself as a power-broker in the Caucasus by negotiating an EU-led military mission to Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan. The deal follows a meeting held between EU officials and representatives from Baku and Yerevan in Prague that saw all parties agree to EU peacekeepers along the contested border.
Baku has been pressing Yerevan to come to a peace agreement by demarcating a new border and agree on the nature of transportation routes between the two countries. The two sides already agreed to recognize each other’s “territorial integrity and sovereignty” earlier this month, a key demand of Baku during the negotiations. EU forces on the border may be able to prove effective at projecting stability in the region, though its close ties with Azerbaijan may work against any final agreement favourable to all parties.
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Greece and Egypt in Joint Opposition to Turkish-Libyan Gas Deal
Building on a 2019 deal that delineated their maritime borders, Turkey and Libya have signed a natural gas exploitation deal that has been condemned by Egypt and Greece. The agreement calls for joint exploration of energy deposits in waters that are defined as Libyan under the agreements.
The deal has reignited a regional contest involving overlapping maritime claims and energy rights in the eastern Mediterranean, with Turkey and Libya on one side and Greece and Egypt on the other. The deal follows an agreement Turkey signed three years ago with Tripoli that demarcated the countries' shared maritime borders, and the issue continues to work against cooperative attitudes between regional powers. Greece, Egypt and Cyprus believe the 2019 agreement violates their economic rights in an area suspected to contain vast natural gas reserves.