Representatives of the Taliban (banned in Russia) will be informed of the results of the Moscow format on Afghanistan, Moscow has no secrets. This was announced by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the press conference on Tuesday following talks with Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
Earlier, Zamir Kabulov, Russian Presidential Special Representative for Afghanistan and Director of the Second Asia Department of the Foreign Ministry, said that the delegation of the interim government formed by the Taliban would not participate in the Moscow format of consultations on Afghanistan. The meeting will be held on November 16 and will include colleagues from India, Lavrov noted, as well as the remaining participants in previous similar meetings.
"We have regular contact with Taliban representatives. They will be privy to what the participants in the Moscow format meeting will be doing. 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," Lavrov said in response to a question by TASS.
The Russian foreign minister said he and his Indian counterpart discussed in detail the situation in Afghanistan and the tasks facing the international community to help the Afghan people stabilize the situation and come to a national consensus. "We are working with the Taliban, and through us, Indian friends are also taking necessary steps in this direction," the minister stressed.
"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 bearing in mind the need to still consolidate the ethnopolitical unity of the Afghan people, ensure an inclusive ethnopolitical nature of power," Lavrov added.
The Moscow format includes Russia, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The previous meeting was held on October 20 last year. It was attended by a delegation headed by Abdul Salam Hanafi, Deputy Chairman of the Taliban interim government.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Lisa Ferdinando/Creative Commons 2.0
Based on materials from TASS