"The Taliban (a radical movement banned in Russia) is declared a participant in the inter-Afghan negotiations in the UN Security Council resolution, and Russia is implementing this decision by communicating with representatives of the movement, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in an interview with the Rossiya-1 television channel on Sunday.
"The Taliban movement is banned as an organization in our country. The fact is that Russia has repeatedly stressed that it not only does not support, but also strongly confirms its determination to fight international terrorism and rejection of any terrorist activity, including the Taliban movement," the diplomat stressed.
"There is one more small nuance, a very important one. The Taliban movement is part of the inter-Afghan dialogue. The very dialogue that the [UN] Security Council called on all countries to encourage <...> In the Security Council resolution of March 2020, the Taliban movement is stated as such. We are implementing the Security Council resolution [by contacting the Taliban]. We supported it as a country. We are implementing it in practice," she said.
Zakharova called the active criticism of Russian-Taliban contacts in the media an order. "We are all different people, we can and should have different views, including political ones, this is normal, this is good, in fact. The question is different: you can't distort the facts. They are not political views <...> the right is the right. Of course, it can be applied, it can be interpreted, of course. But you need to know them - the basic international legal documents", said Zakharova.
Earlier, a delegation of the Qatari political office of the Taliban movement had visited Moscow. Zamir Kabulov, Russian President's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Director of the Second Asian Department of the Foreign Ministry, met with the Taliban. After the meeting, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported that the Taliban assured them that they would not violate the borders of Central Asian states and guaranteed the security of foreign embassies in Afghanistan.
US Politics
US actions in Afghanistan over the past 20 years can hardly be called logical, Zakharova said. "Today we hear claims that this is the logical conclusion of the US operation in Afghanistan. This is not true. This is not a logical conclusion - it is a failure, Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov said this following his participation in a number of conferences in Dushanbe and in Tashkent. This is a failure. Because a logical conclusion can be a campaign that has a certain logic. It is impossible to understand the logic of what the US was doing there," she said.
Zakharova stressed that for 20 years, the US has never reported on its actions in Afghanistan to the UN Security Council. "20 years is not an insignificant period. Not once in that period, despite reminders, despite appeals, despite commitments, again not only to Security Council members but to the entire international community, not once in that time has the United States come to the Security Council and reported either on the time span or on the outcome of what they did there," she said.
"One of the US initiatives says that they plan to place Afghanistan's evacuees in neighboring countries. How many do you think we're talking about? Tens of thousands," she explained.
On April 14, US President Joe Biden said he had decided to end the operation in Afghanistan, which has become the longest overseas military campaign in American history. The US military contingent is expected to leave Afghanistan by September 11. At the peak of the US operation in 2010-2013, the number of Western forces in Afghanistan exceeded 150,000 people. The main US and NATO combat units were withdrawn from Afghanistan in 2014.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Alexander Shcherbak / TASS
Based on materials from TASS