Representatives of ten nations will gather on Wednesday in the Russian capital for a Moscow format meeting on Afghanistan. They are expected to discuss security problems and consider measures to stabilize the situation in that country.
The Moscow format includes Russia, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The previous meeting was held on October 20, 2021. At that time, the delegation headed by deputy chairman of interim Taliban government Abdul Salam Hanafi took part in it. However, Russian President's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Director of Asia Department of Russian Foreign Ministry Zamir Kabulov said that the Taliban would not attend the event this time.
For his part, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized that Moscow supports the dialogue with the current Afghan authorities and that they will be informed of the results of the consultations. "We have regular contact with representatives of the Taliban. They will be privy to what the Moscow format meeting will do. Of course, we have no secrets from the representatives of Afghanistan, we will brief the Taliban and other political forces that exist there in detail," the minister said.
Afghan problems
Speaking about the difficulties that currently remain on the Afghan track, Lavrov noted that the Taliban (banned in Russia) has yet to fulfill its promises and form a truly inclusive government. "So far we have not yet achieved the desired result, so far we have not yet seen that our colleagues, who are now the authorities in Kabul, are moving fast enough in the directions that were announced as commitments to their people, especially having in mind the need to still consolidate the ethnopolitical unity of the Afghan people, to ensure an inclusive ethnopolitical nature of the government," he said.
This topic was discussed in detail by the Russian minister with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar at the talks in Moscow just a week ago. The Indian foreign minister pointed out that representatives from both countries regularly exchange views on Afghan issues and expressed hope that the forthcoming meeting of the Moscow format would be productive. In his words, one of the main dangers emanating from Afghanistan is still the activity of terrorist groups. Combating this threat now is a priority task for all the countries of the region.
Secretary of the Security Council of Russia Nikolai Patrushev warned in early November about the risk of terrorist incursions from Afghanistan into the CIS territory. Patrushev explained that there is a risk of serious deterioration of migration situation because of the economic crisis in the country, and participants of terrorist organizations, who "feel themselves comfortable on the territory of Afghanistan today," may turn out to be among refugees. It is also worth mentioning the problem of drug trafficking: according to the UN, opium production in Afghanistan increased by 32 percent after the Taliban came to power. All of this is on the agenda of upcoming consultations.
About the Moscow format
For Russia, the Moscow format remains a priority forum for discussing Afghanistan-related issues. According to Kabulov, the Russian side decided to concentrate on work in this format because "the experience of negotiations with the Americans in various multilateral formats, including the so-called expanded troika (Russia, China, the United States, Pakistan), showed that the overseas colleagues use them to promote their own narrowly selfish goals of maintaining dominance, contrary to the interests of the regions."
The Moscow format was established in 2017 on the basis of a six-party consultation mechanism of special representatives of Russia, Afghanistan, India, Iran, China and Pakistan. Its first meeting was held on April 14, 2017, with the participation of deputy ministers and special representatives of 11 countries, including the Afghan side. The main goal of the format is to promote the process of national reconciliation in Afghanistan and the early establishment of peace in the country. Moscow then assessed the first meeting as "a frank and detailed exchange of opinions." Following the consultations, the participants called on the international community to continue providing multifaceted assistance to Afghanistan.
GSV "Russia - Islamic world"
Photo: ResoluteSupportMedia/Creative Commons 2.0
Based on materials from TASS