Russia’s parliament on Tuesday passed a law allowing Moscow to suspend sanctions on groups designated as terrorist organizations – paving the way for normalizing relations with the Afghan Taliban and potentially with Syria’s new rulers.
Neither country currently recognizes the Taliban government in Afghanistan, which seized power in August 2021 as US-led forces made a chaotic withdrawal after 20 years of war. But Russia has been slowly building ties with the movement, which President Vladimir Putin said in July was now helping to fight terrorism.
Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia’s Muslim region of Chechnya, on Monday called for the removal of the Syrian group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which this month removed President Bashar al-Assad from Russia’s list of banned terrorist groups.
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