The US military exercises in Central Asia, in which several countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) participate, are necessary for the Americans to study the potential theater of military operations and specify the targets and maps, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev said.
The Argumenty i Fakty newspaper published earlier extracts from Patrushev's August 19 speech at a meeting of the SCO secretaries in Tashkent, which had not been published earlier, and the authenticity of the quotes was confirmed by the Russian Security Council press office.
The case in question is about the "Regional Cooperation - 2022" exercise that began on August 10 in Tajikistan under the command of the United States and with the participation of military personnel from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia and Pakistan.
"I would like to remind the partners that the Americans need such events primarily to study the potential theater of military operations, clarify the coordinates of promising targets and adjust digital maps for high-precision weapons," Patrushev said. - "I hope that all SCO member countries realize now that these American initiatives pose extremely high risks for our security."
The secretary of the Russian Security Council has pointed out that Washington does not abandon the attempts to negotiate with the neighboring countries of Afghanistan about creating there a supposedly temporary infrastructure for anti-terrorist operations, and this is exactly the way Moscow views the exercise "Regional Cooperation - 2022."
Current SCO members include China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The observer countries are Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia; the partner countries are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Turkey and Sri Lanka. A summit is scheduled for mid-September in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. It is expected that during it the procedure of Iran joining the union will be completed and the status of a dialogue partner will be granted to Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Belarus's application to join the SCO as a full-fledged member is also under consideration.
GSV "Russia - Islamic world"
Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS