MOSCOW, August 2. /TASS/. Threats coming from the territory of Afghanistan cannot be repelled by a limited pool of players, this task requires consolidation of efforts at both regional and international levels, a top-ranking Russian diplomat told TASS on Tuesday.

"We have repeatedly said that efficient efforts to address the threats coming from the territory of Afghanistan require more active involvement of the entire world community," Zamir Kabulov, Russian president’s special envoy for Afghanistan and director of the Russian foreign ministry’s 2nd Asia department, said ahead of a Washington C5+1 ministerial meeting, involving top diplomats from the United States and five Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

"Afghanistan’s current problems cannot be resolved unilaterally or by a limited pool of players. Yet another proof to it is the failure of efforts of the so-called four-lateral contact group on national reconciliation in Afghanistan, where the United States took part," he said.

"We prefer to assess new formats of cooperation in the region by concrete results," the Russian diplomat went on to say.

"In this context, it looks to be too early to judge the work of C5+1," he said. "If it is meant to solve the task of stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan, we think that by now enough international and regional formats have been established, with the most important of them being the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Collective Security Treaty Organizations (CSTO)."

As for relations between the new format’s projects and the security build-up measures already being implemented at Russia’s initiative and with its participation, including within the SCO and the CSTO, Kabulov said that the Russian side believes that "such projects should not duplicate or repeat, but supplement the existing security measures in the region."

Daniel Rosenblum, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Central Asia at the U.S. Department of State, said last week that at the Washington meeting the United States plans to agree five joint cooperation projects with the Central Asian states. He said the C5+1 format implies work in three areas - economy, environment and addressing terrorism and other threats facing the region over the situation in Afghanistan.