RASC News Agency: The Iranian government has formally confirmed that it has reached an agreement with the Taliban regime on the exchange of prisoners, a move that analysts describe as a pragmatic yet uneasy gesture between two ideologically divided neighbors.
Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister, announced that the Taliban have consented to transfer a number of Iranian nationals detained in Afghanistan to Iran. He added that under the framework of this understanding, the list of prisoners would soon be handed to the Iranian embassy in Kabul, enabling their rapid repatriation.
However, neither Tehran nor the Taliban authorities have released any official figures regarding the number or identities of the Iranian prisoners held in Afghanistan. Observers suggest that this lack of transparency is consistent with the Taliban’s habitual secrecy and absence of institutional accountability.
Gharibabadi further stated that Iran, in turn, has agreed to resume the transfer of eligible Afghanistani prisoners from its jails to Afghanistan, where they will serve the remainder of their sentences. This reciprocal arrangement, he said, revives an earlier bilateral agreement that had been suspended following the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.
While the exact number of Afghanistani detainees in Iran remains undisclosed, Iranian judicial officials have previously indicated that, over the past decade, more than 4,500 foreign inmates have been repatriated to their home countries under similar accords.
In Mizan 1403 (March 2025), following a visit by Askar Jalalian, Iran’s Deputy Minister of Justice, to Kabul, both sides renewed discussions on implementing the prisoner transfer process. Taliban representatives, seeking to showcase international engagement amid their growing isolation, swiftly agreed to the proposal.
According to the Taliban’s Directorate for Prison Affairs, as of Jawza 21 (June 2025), over 400 Afghanistani prisoners who had been convicted in Iran were transferred back to Afghanistan in two separate phases during the previous year. Prior to that, on Hamal 29 (April 2025), the same office claimed that nearly 200 Afghanistani nationals serving medium- to long-term prison sentences had been handed over by Tehran.
Yet, beneath these bureaucratic announcements lies a more complex and troubling reality. Analysts note that Tehran’s engagement with the Taliban reflects a reluctant necessity rather than genuine partnership. Iran, long wary of the Taliban’s extremist ideology and their brutal suppression of ethnic minorities and women, appears to be pursuing a policy of controlled engagement aimed at safeguarding its border security and maintaining leverage in western Afghanistan.
Critics argue that the Taliban’s willingness to cooperate with Iran on the prisoner exchange is part of a calculated attempt to project an illusion of legitimacy at a time when their regime remains globally unrecognized and deeply reviled for its ongoing human rights abuses. By participating in such diplomatic gestures, the Taliban seek to obscure the grim domestic realities of arbitrary detention, torture, and systematic oppression that define their rule.
Moreover, experts emphasize that the Taliban’s custodial system itself has been marred by widespread corruption and inhumane treatment. Reports from international human rights monitors describe Afghanistan’s prisons under Taliban control as overcrowded, unsanitary, and governed by arbitrary decrees rather than any coherent legal code. In this context, their participation in a so-called “prisoner exchange” agreement raises serious ethical concerns about the safety and rights of detainees once returned to Taliban custody.
Ultimately, this latest deal underscores the uneasy pragmatism shaping Iran’s regional policy balancing national interests against moral considerations. For the Taliban, however, it serves as yet another hollow performance of diplomacy, masking the regime’s deepening internal fractures and its continued descent into repression and international isolation.
