Russia does not exclude the possibility of holding a meeting of Moscow format on the Afghan peace settlement and is ready to provide such a platform for the dialogue of the Afghan parties in case of a request. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on Thursday.
"In the future, we do not exclude the possibility of holding another meeting and the Moscow format. She said: "If necessary, if the parties to the inter-Afghan negotiations would like to see a peaceful resolution, we would be ready to provide a venue for the dialogue in Moscow".
The diplomat noted that the warring Afghan parties were bogged down in technical discussions and did not start discussing the key aspects of national reconciliation. These are the formation of the country's future state structure, a durable ceasefire and other particularly significant issues.
"The deadlock over negotiations was one of the main topics of consultations held in Moscow between the Russian President's Special Representative [for Afghanistan and Director of the Second Asia Department of the Foreign Ministry, Zamir] Kabulov and a delegation from the political office of the Taliban [banned in Russia]. The Russian side stressed the need to start a substantive inter-Afghan dialogue as soon as possible. The Taliban side assured that they remained interested in constructive talks with the Kabul delegation and committed to the Doha agreement with the US," Zakharova added.
She noted that more efforts are needed in the current situation to give impetus to the process of inter-Afghan national reconciliation. "We intend to continue working in this direction within the framework of the expanded troika: Russia, USA, China plus Pakistan. We hope that Iran will also take part in this process," the spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry emphasized.
During the same briefing, Zakharova announced that on February 24-27, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, the Foreign Minister of Afghanistan, would visit Moscow. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will hold talks with him.
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Photo: Mikhail Tereshchenko / TASS
Based on materials from TASS