Turan Research Center

On the day after the Taliban seized Kabul in 2021, a Turkish Airlines flight carrying 234 passengers arrived in Istanbul. Among them was Sarwar Danish, Afghanistan’s Second Vice President, and two members of President Ashraf Ghani’s fleeing cabinet.

Danish, became the highest-ranking Hazara official of the Afghan government to flee the Taliban without seeking refuge in Iran, despite having lived and studied there for many years. Like many educated Hazara elites, he spent much of the 1980s and 1990s in Iran, pursuing religious studies in Qom, home to the world’ s largest Shiite theological seminary.

Hazara Shiites and Iranian Shiites share the Twelver branch of Shia Islam but differ ethnically. The Hazaras have Mongol-Turkic roots and speak Hazaragi, a Farsi-based language. Iranian Shiites are ethnic Persians who speak Farsi.

Iran’s deepening relations with the Taliban convinced Danish that it was too risky to seek refuge there. Ultimately, he resettled in New Zealand.

In the aftermath of 9/11, U.S. Operation Enduring Freedom brought about the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001. The subsequent Bonn Agreement established a power-sharing framework that reshaped Afghanistan’s political order. Within this arrangement, the Hazaras — the second most powerful opposition to the Taliban after the Tajiks — secured 20 percent of Cabinet positions. Their representation was led by Islamic Unity Party (Hizb-e-Wahdat) leader Mohammad Karim Khalili, who assumed the role of Second Vice President Today, Khalili lives in exile in Turkey.

Following the U.S. intervention in 2001, the Hazaras community has pursued gradual yet consistent efforts to define an identity that extends beyond its Shiite religious affiliation. This process has contributed to a degree of distancing from Iran’s Islamic regime. In their search for a broader cultural and political framework, Hazara political and academic elites have taken tangible steps to cultivate ties with Turkey, positioning themselves as leading actors within the Turkic world. Such outreach has resonated with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s promotion of Pan-Turkism.

Within this context, Turkey’s reception of prominent Hazara political leaders such as Khalili and Mohammad Mohaqqiq, the long-time leader of the People’s Islamic Unity Party of Afghanistan (PIUPA), appears strategically coherent. Both figures, together with Danish, have played active roles in exile politics, most notably through the establishment of the National Resistance Council for Salvation of Afghanistan in Turkey in 2022. The council has formed a political opposition coalition against the Taliban. Both Mohaqqiq and Danish are the among the organization’s founders.

Iran’s relationship with the Taliban has steadily deepened over the past decade, diminishing its appeal as a refuge for Hazara leaders. From 2015 onward, reports indicate that Iran began engaging both diplomatically and militarily with the Taliban, with some analysts noting the establishment of Taliban training infrastructure inside Iran. This alignment was not merely pragmatic but political: Iran appeared intent on cultivating influence with the Taliban, even at the expense of marginalized Afghan groups. In return, Iran secures its eastern border, gains access to the Afghan market, uses the Taliban’s anti-West sentiments as its global P.R., and can stay influential in regional dynamics. In 2023, the relationship was formalized further when Tehran transferred control of the Afghan embassy to Taliban-appointed diplomats.

The Hazara community’s historical experience with Iran is more complex than shared Shiite identity might suggest. During the anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s, Iran provided support to Hazara jihadist groups, but this assistance weakened Hazara political cohesion after the Soviet withdrawal, some analysts argue.

Moreover, within Hazara narratives, Iran is remembered as having prioritized other Afghan factions — such as the Tajik mujahideen group, Jamiat-e Islami. during the early 1990s civil war that erupted after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, offering more military support, while limiting aid to Hazara groups. Although archival evidence remains sparse, these perceptions left a legacy of mistrust among some Hazara elites toward Tehran.

One of the most significant sources of Hazara mistrust toward Iran stems from Iran’s use of Hazara refugees in its regional military engagements. The Fatemiyoun Brigade, backed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), recruited large numbers of Afghan Hazaras — including minors — to fight in Syria. Human Rights Watch documented cases of Afghan children as young as 14 who were deployed and killed in Syria under Fatemiyoun’s banner.

Beyond such recruitment, reports highlight coercive practices: Hazara refugees allegedly pressured through economic vulnerability or promises of legal residency for fighting in the Fatemiyoun. Human Rights and migrant-rights groups argue that the IRGC exploited refugees’ precarious lives for geopolitical gain. In a 2020 report by the Ceasefire Center for Civilian Rights, IRGC Qud’s Force recruited thousands of Afghans Shias mainly from the Hazara community to fight in Syria. One Afghan described being approached at a mosque in Efsahan, “They suggested we go to Syria to help defend the Shi’a holy shrines from Daesh’, adding that ‘we’d get passports and have an easy life afterwards. We’d be like Iranian citizens and could buy cars, houses…”

For Hazara leaders, these practices transformed Iran from a potential sanctuary into a place of exploitation, casting serious doubts about Tehran’s willingness to protect the broader Hazara community.

Throughout the two-decades of the Afghan Republic, Western governments played a dominant role in the nation’s political institutions, development funding, and security architecture. Hazara leaders actively cultivated these relationships to avoid political marginalization and to ensure external backing. During this period, hundreds of Hazara youth obtained scholarships to leading universities in the U.S. and Europe, with many returning to Afghanistan to occupy senior positions within the Republic’s bureaucracy.

Following the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, Western actors continued to influence Afghan realities primarily through humanitarian aid. According to a UNOCHA, approximately $6.7 billion in humanitarian funding was directed to Afghanistan between 2021 and 2024. This sustained support reinforced the perception that Western countries would remain influential players in any future Afghan political landscape. For Hazara leaders, relocation to the West offered not only physical safety but also continued political relevance and access to resources.

Over the past two decades, Hazara diaspora communities have flourished across Western countries — particularly in Europe, Australia, and Canada. These communities have become hubs for political mobilization, advocacy, fundraising, and civil society initiatives. For exiled Hazara leaders, relocation to these countries provides access to established networks, enabling them to maintain influence and engage in transnational activism.

 By contrast, the political space for Hazaras in Iran has remained considerably more constrained limiting the role of any diaspora there as a platform for political leadership. Iran’s domestic political system imposes strict limits on independent political organizing, particularly for refugees. Hazara leaders attempting to operate politically in Iran risk surveillance, repression, and legal obstacles. It is highly unlikely that figures like Mohammad Mohaqqiq, Sarwar Danesh, or Karim Khalili could freely participate in anti-Taliban groups if based in Iran.

Moreover, Iran’s political climate is far less permissive toward the formation of independent political parties or coalitions — especially those that might challenge Tehran’s strategic interests. For Hazara leaders seeking political agency and a long-term voice, Western democracies offer far greater freedom and opportunity than Iran’s restrictive environment.

Hussain Ehsani is a Research Fellow at the Turan Research Center. He previously was as a senior researcher at the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Tehran.

Joseph Epstein is the Director of the Turan Research Center, a Senior Fellow at the Yorktown Institute, and a Research Fellow at Bar Ilan University's Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.