MINSK, August 23. /TASS/. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko does not rule out the deployment of US forces in countries neighboring Afghanistan, including in CSTO member states, he said Monday.

"There is another sensitive issue related to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan - that being potential plans of the US army deploying in the neighboring states, including CSTO member states," Lukashenko said at the CSTO emergency meeting, according to BelTA.

The President believes that this issue should be thoroughly examined from the standpoint of security inside the Organization’s area of responsibility. According to Lukashenko, Russia shares the Belarusian position and also considers the deployment of US forces inside the CSTO area of responsibility to be unacceptable.

"I absolutely support the Russian President, his statements regarding the unacceptability of US military aircraft sorties over the CSTO countries, first of all. Not only for Russia - for all of us as CSTO members," Lukashenko said. "Moreover, I am in absolutely solidarityy with him that the NATO progression - and they got brazen to the extreme, they move towards Russia through Belarus - as well as their attempt to entrench in Central Asia are unacceptable both for Russia and for ourselves."

Meanwhile, the Belarusian leader underscored that the situation must be assessed without emotions, as adequately and realistically as possible.

"One could say that, after 20 years of occupation and colossal investments, the Washington-led coalition got egg on its face. Let us think that this is not entirely true. One cannot disregard the potential strategic plan for a completely deliberate US step for the establishment of instability in this region, and partially in the CSTO area of responsibility," the head of state noted.

"They have created problems and they effectively shift the settlement of these problems to others. Meanwhile they effectively seek to get away with this," he said.

According to Lukashenko, the situation in Afghanistan is a gigantic failure of the Western policy nevertheless.

"This is indeed so, and, first of all, [this is a defeat of] the United States. This is an unambiguous example of what their mindless armed imposition of the so-called democratic principles leads to. The US and their allies, as they often do, treated with utter ignorance the historic, ethno-cultural and religious aspects of the state, and most of all - the interests of the people," he said.

He noted that the situation in the Kabul airport proves his point.