MOSCOW, July 4. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has not planned as of yet any contacts with the Afghan leadership, but the dialogue between Moscow and Kabul will be developing at various levels, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
"There are no such plans at the moment," Peskov said at a news briefing in response to a question whether Putin planned contacts with the Afghan leadership. "However, contacts will be certainly established at various levels within the framework of bilateral relations."
On July 3, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported that Moscow had formally recognized the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Later that day, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko accepted credentials from Gul Hassan, Afghanistan’s new ambassador to Russia. The ambassador arrived in Moscow on July 1.
On April 17, the Russian Supreme Court granted a plea from the prosecutor general to suspend the ban on the Taliban's activities in the country. The Russian Foreign Ministry announced the removal of the Taliban's status as a terrorist group, paving the way for building a comprehensive partnership with Kabul in the interests of the Russian and Afghan peoples.
At the end of December last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law establishing the possibility of temporarily suspending the ban on activities of organizations included in the unified list of terrorist groups.