MINSK, August 23. /TASS/. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko thinks that the states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) should fortify the Tajik-Afghan border against the background of the events in Afghanistan.
"Given a certain transparency of the borders between our countries, this issue also seriously concerns us. In this context, it is necessary to pay attention to practical measures on the further fortifying of the Tajik-Afghan border. This is what we should do as a matter of priority and without fail," the BelTA news agency quoted Lukashenko as saying at an emergency session of the CSTO Collective Security Council on Monday.
According to the Belarusian leader, it is also reasonable to review the issue of holding within the CSTO network emergency intergovernmental operations Kanal (fighting drug trafficking) and Nelegal (counteracting illegal migration). "We have done this before and very efficiently, the practice has been worked out," he said.
He reiterated that during the upcoming CSTO military exercises Interaction-2021, Poisk-2021 and Echelon-2021 in Tajikistan on October 18-23 it would be necessary to work out the issues of counteracting actual threats from the direction of Afghanistan. "At the same time, we are not going to blackmail Afghanistan, current authorities, the Taliban (outlawed in Russia - TASS). No, we are simply developing the protection of our CSTO borders just in case," the Belarusian president noted.
On February 14, 2003, the Russian Supreme Court declared the Taliban to be a terrorist organization and its activities are outlawed nationwide.