ASTANA, October 13. /TASS/. Afghanistan's illegally blocked funds must be unfrozen, the country should receive compensation for the damage caused to it by the years of occupation, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

"We call for compensating the damage inflicted on Afghans over the years of occupation and unfreezing illegally blocked Afghan funds," the Russian president said, speaking at the 6th Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) summit in Astana on Thursday.

According to Putin, Afghanistan remains one of the region's most acute security challenges. The Russian president said that the country, as a result of over 20 years of US and NATO military presence and the failure of their policies, has been unable to deal with terrorist threats on its own, as an ongoing series of bloody terrorist attacks confirmed, including the September 5 bombing of the Russian embassy in Kabul.

"Naturally, in order to normalize the situation on the territory of Afghanistan it is necessary to jointly help its economic recovery," the Russian president emphasized.

In his opinion, it would be useful to involve the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and its Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure in the context of the Afghan settlement. "We also invite all Asian countries to cooperate more closely with the international data bank for combating terrorism established on Russia’s initiative," Putin said.

The Russian president drew his counterparts’ attention to the fact that Russia, together with partners from China, had drafted a joint statement for the Astana summit on information and communication technology security cooperation. Putin said that he hoped it would be approved.