MOSCOW (Dispatches) – Russia’s 
parliament passed a law on Tuesday that would allow courts to suspend bans on groups designated by Moscow as terrorist organizations - paving the way for it to normalize ties with the Afghan Taliban and potentially with the new leadership of Syria.
No country currently recognizes the Taliban government in Afghanistan, which seized power in August 2021 as U.S.-led forces staged a chaotic withdrawal after 20 years of war.
But Russia has been gradually building ties with the movement, which President Vladimir Putin said in July was now an ally in fighting terrorism.
The leader of Russia’s region of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, called on Monday for the removal of Syrian group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from Moscow’s list of banned terror groups. HTS spearheaded the toppling of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad this month.
Kadyrov, a close Putin ally, said Russia needed ties to the new Syrian authorities to ensure stability and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. The Kremlin said this week that Russia was in contact with the new leadership in Syria, where it hopes to retain the use of an airfield and a naval base that give it an important military foothold in the Mediterranean.
The new law, passed by parliament’s lower house, the State Duma, allows for a group to be removed from Russia’s banned list by order of a court if it ceases terrorist-related activity.
The Taliban were in the first batch of groups to be listed, in February 2003, and Syria’s HTS was added in 2020.
Moscow sees a major security threat from militant groups based in a string of countries from Afghanistan to West Asia, where Russia lost a major ally with the fall of Assad.
In March, gunmen killed 145 people at a concert hall outside Moscow in an attack claimed by Daesh. U.S. officials said they had intelligence indicating it was the Afghan branch of the group, Daesh Khorasan, that was responsible.
The Taliban say they are working to wipe out the presence of Daesh in Afghanistan.