Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking at a meeting of foreign ministers of the countries participating in the Conference on interaction and confidence-building measures in Asia (CICA) on Tuesday, noted the importance of preventing weapons and military equipment left in Afghanistan after NATO withdrawal from there from being used for destructive purposes.
"The NATO's hasty withdrawal has further entangled the tangle of Afghan contradictions. A lot of weapons and military equipment remained in the country. It is important that they are not used for destructive purposes," the minister stressed.
"The Taliban (banned in the Russian Federation - TASS) declared that they intend to fight against drugs and terrorism, not to project instability on the neighboring countries, to achieve an inclusive government. The main thing is that the promises they made should be kept," Lavrov added.
The North Atlantic alliance, sidestepping the issue of responsibility for the twenty-year presence in Afghanistan, is offering the neighbors of the Islamic republic to solve the problems there, Lavrov pointed out.
"In the same vein, we can note the desire of the North Atlantic alliance after Afghanistan to redeploy forces to other areas of the region, be it Central, South or Southeast Asia, and at the same time to send streams of Afghan refugees to these regions. The alliance is avoiding the question of NATO's responsibility for the consequences of its 20-year experiments. The international community, especially Afghanistan's neighbors, are offered to solve the problems," he said.
The Taliban movement (banned in Russia) launched a large-scale operation to take control of Afghanistan after the announcement by the United States in the spring of this year of the decision to withdraw its military forces from there. On August 15, the radicals entered Kabul without any fighting, and president Ashraf Ghani left the country. On 6 September, the Taliban declared that they had taken control of the entire territory of Afghanistan and announced the composition of the provisional government on 7 September.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry
Based on materials from TASS