The Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Kabul announced on Thursday, January 23, that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will visit Afghanistan soon.

Without providing further details, the embassy wrote on its account on social media platform X, "Araghchi's imminent visit to Afghanistan."

In response to Araghchi's visit, the Taliban's Foreign Ministry called it a "constructive step" towards strengthening relations between the two countries and said that his visit could "enter a new phase" in relations between the two countries.

Zakir Jalali, a Taliban foreign minister official, wrote in a note on his X account, "The common political, economic and security interests between Afghanistan and Iran are an opportunity to strengthen bilateral cooperation."

After the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, Iran was one of the few countries that continued its diplomatic relations with the Taliban and became a serious regional supporter of the Taliban, but no Iranian foreign minister had visited Kabul in the past three and a half years.

Earlier, on August 27, 2023, Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban's acting foreign minister, had invited Amir Hossein Abdollahian, the foreign minister of Ebrahim Raisi's government, to visit Kabul.

In that phone conversation, the two sides discussed the distribution and management of water in the Helmand River, especially Iran's water rights.

In recent weeks, Iranian officials have spoken several times about Iran's water rights from the Helmand River, and in some cases, they have threatened to take it from the Taliban by "force".

Recently, after a visit to Sistan and Baluchestan province, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian emphasised in a television interview that Iran's Sistan and Baluchestan water rights are being pursued in talks with the Taliban.

In addition to the issues of terrorism and narcotics, it seems that Abbas Araghchi's visit to Kabul is not unrelated to Iran's water rights.