TEHRAN, October 22. /TASS/. Russia welcomes the completion of the long dragged election process in Afghanistan, Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolay Patrushev told TASS on Wednesday.
“New Afghan President (Ashraf Ghani) Ahmadzai has to solve complex problems of forming an efficient government, consolidating the ethnically splintered society and increasing the effectiveness of Afghan security forces,” Patrushev said.
“The latest task is particularly topical because we permanently hear terrorists’ statements that they are able to take most part of the country’s territory under control,” he said. “Under these conditions, our priority is to prevent the Afghan factor’s negative influence on security in Central Asia,” Patrushev said.
This problem is being solved at the bilateral level and within multilateral mechanisms, including within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which “is one of the guarantors of regional stability,” he said.
“We intend to use our upcoming presidency in the organization for improving its activity and actively involving the partner states in dialogue with the existing SCO interaction mechanisms,” Patrushev said.