DUSHANBE (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th June, 2023) Building a dialogue with the Taliban (under UN sanctions over terrorism) meets the objective of improving security in Afghanistan and the region in general, but the movement must first fulfill its obligations to the people and the international community, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday.
"It is our conviction that building a working dialogue with the Taliban as a currently uncontested, dominant internal political force in Afghanistan is in the interests of security and economic development of the region, as well as inter-Afghan national reconciliation, to which we are constantly pushing the current authorities in Kabul," Lavrov said during a speech at the Russian-Tajik Slavonic University located in Dushanbe.
The start of the process of officially recognizing the Taliban government will remain out of the question, until all these conditions are met, the top Russian diplomat stressed.
"As I have already said, these commitments included the formation of an ethnopolitically balanced government, stepping up measures against terrorism and drug trafficking and ensuring the basic human rights of all peoples living in Afghanistan, including Tajiks," Lavrov said.
The approaches of Russia and Tajikistan coincide on many principal issues of the Afghan agenda, the Russian foreign minister stated, adding that Moscow had regularly encouraged representatives of the Taliban during bilateral contacts to accelerate the implementation of those tasks announced to the whole world.
The Taliban's rise to power in Afghanistan in August 2021 resulted in the deepening of the economic, humanitarian and security crisis in the country, with the movement being heavily criticized over violations of human rights and freedoms. Moreover, the Taliban's takeover raised fears among the Central Asian nations that radical Islamic ideas would spread across the region, as it happened in 1996 when the movement first came to power in Afghanistan for five years.
