WASHINGTON, March 23. /TASS/. The war won’t resume in Afghanistan after foreign troops leave the country and ceasefire is established, Russia’s Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov said after trilateral consultations on Afghanistan in Washington with the US and Chinese envoys.
"Many fear that like in previous decades in case the Americans leave, there will be power vacuum, collapse and war. But the fact is that this won’t be so. If events develop in accordance with the scenario of the agreements on pulling out foreign forces and establishing ceasefire, there won’t be any war. The process of intra-Afghan agreements will begin on the future of their country and there won’t be any sense in the war," the diplomat said.
"We will offer our helping hand as we will participate here as foreign players contributing to this process," Kabulov said.
"Afghans should have a chance to sort it out by themselves and establish order. I won't try to assume what that order might look like, but in any case, it should be a normal state. This is what we are talking about with the Taliban. Monopoly rule and return of the Taliban are out of the question," Kabulov said.
"Yes, we are considering a democratic system of governance. However, one must be careful with such terms as democracy, as this word has become demonitative in some countries in the last 18 years. This is all a formula of failure. Afghans have their own forms of democracy, national forms that can use elements of widely recognized democratic norms. The main thing is that the new system of governance in Afghanistan ensures the rights of all layers of the Afghan population," he noted.
"The whole process may take longer than we would want. Forty years of war have to be taken into account. There is common exhaustion from the war, and it will be used to facilitate achieving normal agreements," the diplomat added.
Kabulov also talked about the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. "If the presence of US bases did not lead to defeating terrorism, this prompts serious considerations — what is the purpose of those bases? Military bases are not necessary to fight against the Taliban [outlawed in Russia], and they are not used to fight against IS [Islamic State terrorist organization outlawed in Russia]," he said.
"Americans know this, and we tell them this directly. Their explanations are not very serious. We hear about the fight against terrorism from them, but we all understand what the real situation is. This is an attempt to maintain strong military presence to be able to exert strategic influence on the whole region - from Russia to China, Iran, Pakistan, and so on," the diplomat said. "US partners are not yet breave enough to answer this question for us," he noted.
Over the last four years the Taliban movement (outlawed in Russia) has considerably expanded their zone of control in Afghanistan. The Taliban now controls around 60% of the country.