Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday that Afghanistan needs an inclusive government in order to resolve ongoing challenges and counter threats of terrorism, drug trafficking and illegal migration.
Addressing a joint press conference with Tajik Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin in Tajikistan on Tuesday, Lavrov said that regional and international events can help Afghanistan in addressing ongoing challenges.
“Particular attention was paid to the situation in Afghanistan,” Lavrov said, speaking about his meeting with his Tajik counterpart. “We regularly hold close, confidential consultations.”
“We work together on international platforms – the Moscow format of consultations on Afghanistan, the CSTO, the SCO. We noted the coincidence of our approaches on most issues,” he added.
He said that “there is the need to create an inclusive, in the ethnic and political sense, government in the country, to counter the threats of terrorism, illegal migration, and drug trafficking emanating from Afghanistan.
“In this sense, actions to implement the decisions of the Central Asia + Russia Summit, which took place in Astana in the fall of 2022, will be of great importance. Now we are finalizing the plan for the implementation of these agreements,” Lavrov said.
On Monday during a visit to a military base in Tajikistan, Lavrov accused US of supporting Daesh and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
“Just today I read that US Ambassador to Tajikistan M. Micaller made a statement that the Americans do not want to support the anti-Taliban forces by some kind of forceful methods,” he said. “They supposedly wish the entire Afghan people to hold a national dialogue, reach an agreement on how to live in one country later and overcome all the deepest problems inherited, including the 20-year occupation of the country by the US and its allies.”
He said that such statements are “speaking in the language of diplomacy” and “false statements.”
