As the Taliban enters its sixth year in power following the fall of Kabul, it continues seeking international legitimacy and foreign investment. The recent visit by Zalmay Khalilzad, the former US ambassador to Afghanistan who later served as the special representative for Afghan reconciliation under Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, may help the Taliban in its goal of achieving both objectives, even though he no longer officially represents the US government.
On September 5, Mr. Khalilzad, who was the chief architect of President Trump’s Doha Agreement, met with the Taliban’s deputy prime minister for economic affairs, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar Akhund. According to Afghan press reporting, the US State Department stated that Khalilzad was not acting as a representative of the United States and that his activities were “carried out in a personal capacity.”
During the meeting, Khalilzad and Baradar discussed Afghanistan’s economic development, specifically foreign investment, national infrastructure, and governance.
Khalilzad played an instrumental role in securing Baradar’s 2018 release from Pakistani custody, ensuring that the United States had an influential Taliban interlocutor for the peace negotiations Khalilzad was preparing to lead at the time. Pakistani authorities had arrested Baradar in Karachi in 2010.
Mr. Khalilzad also met with the Taliban’s acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on September 5. According to the Taliban’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the two discussed expanding relations between the United States and Afghanistan. Khalilzad also reportedly praised Afghanistan’s recent progress in reconstruction, security, and stability.
Khalilzad’s trip came less than a week after the Financial Times reported on the Taliban’s overtures to the Trump administration, including an offer of access to Afghanistan’s vast mineral resources.
“Relations between Afghanistan and the United States should not be assessed through the lens of the past 20 years, but rather on the basis of future co-operation,” Muttaqi told the Financial Times.
Following this report, a US State Department official told Voice of America that the United States had rejected Muttaqi’s calls for investment, arguing that such funding would further enable the Taliban’s repression of the Afghan people.
Two days after meeting with Taliban officials, Khalilzad attended a September 7 signing ceremony between the Saudi private energy firm Delta International and the Taliban’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum. According to the Taliban, Delta International will invest $200 million during an initial exploration and extraction phase in the Kushk-Tirpul oil basin, which covers approximately 22,000 square kilometers between Herat and Badghis provinces in western Afghanistan.
During the ceremony, Khalilzad said the agreement demonstrated that Afghanistan was ready for large-scale investment. He called the deal a “positive and promising” development for the Afghan people and congratulated both parties for signing the contract.
The Saudi company will also study the feasibility of using natural gas from the project in Herat. If the province is deemed a viable market, it could become the first recipient of natural gas extracted from Kushk-Tirpul.
Delta International will also reportedly study a 435-mile gas pipeline connecting Herat and Spin Boldak in southern Afghanistan. The pipeline could require approximately $10 billion in investment and, if completed, create a vital domestic energy corridor across Afghanistan.
While the new deal is undoubtedly a public-relations victory for the Taliban, similar projects have faltered. In 2025, the Taliban canceled a 2023 contract with the Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas to invest approximately $540 million in the Amu Darya oil fields in northern Afghanistan. Taliban officials accused the Chinese company of violating the agreement’s terms.
Despite the US State Department’s insistence that Khalilzad was acting solely in a personal capacity, his role in these events has raised questions of whether he was tacitly signaling American openness to economic engagement with the Taliban or acting on his own personal or financial interests.
Whatever his intentions, Khalilzad gave the Taliban something it has sought since returning to power: an appearance of American validation. For a regime struggling to attract foreign capital and secure international legitimacy, the distinction between an official US envoy and a well-connected former one is likely lost to ordinary Afghans and neighboring governments alike.
