MOSCOW, October 15. /TASS/. Russia intends to discuss its objections and the ways of resolving current problems in Afghanistan with a delegation from the Taliban (outlawed in Russia) during the October 20 Moscow-format meeting, but it does not expect any breakthroughs from these talks, Russian Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan and Director of the Foreign Ministry’s Second Asian Department Zamir Kabulov said at a session dedicated to Afghanistan’s place in the system of regional relations at MGIMO on Friday.
According to him, on October 20, the Russian side intends to "hold a sincere conversation behind closed doors with the representatives of the new Afghan leadership." "We will sincerely convey our objections to the Afghan delegation yet not as demands but as a consultation on how it will be possible to begin to constructively resolve these issues. We do not expect any breakthrough decisions, this is a long evolutionary process, we are proceeding from this understanding. This will concern all human rights issues but at the same time the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan and the ways of resolving it," he said.
The diplomat reiterated that with regards to Afghanistan, for Russia, as for other countries, fighting drug trafficking and terror threats are the priority. "Naturally, we expect, and I don’t doubt that this will happen, that Afghanistan’s new authorities will reconfirm their obligations on the inadmissibility of using Afghan territory against the security interests not only of neighboring [countries] but of other countries as well," the envoy added.
Earlier, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that next week Moscow was expecting the arrival of a representative Taliban delegation for consultations on Afghanistan in the Moscow format scheduled for October 20. This platform emerged in 2017 on the basis of a six-party mechanism of consultations by special envoys from Russia, Afghanistan, India, Iran, China and Pakistan.