MOSCOW, August 3. /TASS/. The current tense situation in Afghanistan stems from strategic mistakes made by the United States and its allies, Special Russian Presidential Representative for Afghanistan and Director of the Second Asian Department at Russia’s Foreign Ministry Zamir Kabulov said at an online discussion at the Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund on Tuesday.
"The current situation in Afghanistan stems from the strategic mistakes, which the United States and its allies made in their Afghan policy," the senior Russian diplomat said.
The United States made a big mistake when it engaged in creating a network of military bases on the territory of Afghanistan instead of assisting the country’s recovery, Kabulov said.
"The Americans took advantage of the situation to establish a ramified network of military bases on the country’s territory so that they could project force to the regions adjacent to Afghanistan, including Russia, to say nothing of Afghanistan’s other immediate neighbors," the envoy added.
"Unfortunately, the Americans could not stay away from this temptation," Kabulov pointed out.
The second strategic mistake was that the United States sought to democratize Afghanistan to follow the US model, the envoy said.
"Instead of simply helping Afghanistan in its development and assisting in developing its state institutions and the economy, relying on proven Afghan traditions, the Americans engaged in democratizing the country and imposing their own conceptions of democracy, which has resulted in failure," Kabulov said.
All these strategic blunders triggered the current situation that is being observed by the entire world, the Russian envoy stressed.
"Now the main task for all the states interested in stability in Afghanistan is to do everything possible to prevent the country from turning into a hotbed and a bridgehead of international terrorism as was the case in the mid-1990s," Kabulov said.