Iran offers its good offices to India to talk to Taliban in Afghanistan

AVA- Iran has offered its good offices to India to engage with the Taliban if they wish to. India did not officially participate in any of the recently held talks with the Taliban. It has maintained that any peace process and negotiation on Afghanistan has to be an Afghan-led process.
India and Iran are engaged in aspects of security and fighting terrorism. Iran recently held official security talks with the Taliban. A source explained that there are many areas bordering Iran that are under Taliban control, therefore, it had become imperative for Tehran to engage them, although, Chabahar was not discussed with the Taliban as was reported by some.
"Iran was the last country to start dialogue. We had contacts with the Taliban because they control some bordering areas. We had official security dialogue last week in Tehran. We had a short discussion with them in Moscow but the first official security meeting was in Tehran. We discussed Chabahar only with President Ghani during our meeting on security in Afghanistan,"the source said.
Iran has offered its good offices to engage with the Taliban.
"We have influence and we have always tried to use that influence. If India wants to use that we are happy to help," the sources said.
Acknowledging the instability and the threat of a resurgent Taliban, highly placed sources said that the Taliban dominated Afghanistan is a security threat not only to Iran and India but is an existential threat to Pakistan.
"We had shared this view with Benazir Bhutto when she was happy to create it. This is what we continue to tell Pakistan that Taliban is a security threat for us but an existential threat for them. And now, they don't disagree," the sources added.