The situation in the Panjshir province is potentially fraught with a new civil war in Afghanistan, Moscow does not intend to interfere in the conflict between the Taliban (banned in the Russian Federation) and the resistance forces, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.
"This line of events was also mentioned today at the CSTO extraordinary meeting in the context that it is potentially fraught with another civil war in Afghanistan and poses additional dangers and threats. Of course, no one is going to interfere in these events," he said.
Peskov said that Moscow was not planning to mediate between the sides. "No, this is out of the question," the Kremlin spokesman said in response to a related question.
Taliban fighters entered Kabul without fighting on August 15 and took complete control of the Afghan capital within hours. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said he was leaving the country to prevent bloodshed. The vice-president of the republic, Amrullah Saleh, said that in the absence of the head of state, he became acting head of the country under the constitution, and called for armed resistance to the Taliban.
Ahmad Masood, son of the once-influential leader of Afghanistan's Tajik community, Ahmad Shah Masood (1953-2001), announced in an August 16 letter published in the French magazine La Regle du jeu that he was organizing resistance to the Taliban, with Panjshir as its center. On August 22, the Taliban announced that they were sending hundreds of their fighters to take over the northern province. On Saturday, a TASS source in Panjshir reported that Masood had begun talks with Taliban representatives to establish an inclusive government and to overcome political differences.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Mikhail Metzel / TASS
Based on materials from TASS