Tajikistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Sharofiddin Imomov has denied reports that Russia is selling weapons to the Taliban through Tajikistan as absolutely baseless.
“Two days ago I met with Abdul Wadud Payman (member of Afghan parliament from Kunduz) and asked him about the source for information that Russia is selling weapons to the Taliban via the Tajik-Afghan border. He said that local residents are telling that. He did not produce any proof. Abdul Wadud Payman later apologized for spreading those rumors through Afghan media,” Tajik diplomat told Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service in an interview.
Earlier, Abdul Wadud Payman told Afghan reporters that it was impossible to supply weapons from Pakistan to the Taliban militants acting in northern Afghanistan. According to him, they are receiving weapons from Russia via the Tajik-Afghan border in the Dashti Archi and Darkad areas.
Muhammad Ulughkhojayev, a spokesman for the Main Border Guard Directorate at the State Committee for National Security of Tajikistan, also says that information that Russia is selling weapons to the Taliban militants via the Tajik-Afghan border does not correspond to the fact.
News that Russia is sharing limited intelligence with the Taliban and selling weapons to them to counter their common adversary – the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group – surfaced in December 2015.
Stephen Blank, the CACI analyst, noted on March 15, 2016 that Russia apparently has been in discussions with the Taliban since 2013. According to U.S. intelligence sources, these discussions have also been accompanied by weapons transfers, Blank noted. According to him, Tajikistan was aware of the fact of the Russo-Taliban discussions, “if not their content, because it has hosted them since 2013.”
In December, former head of Afghanistan’s Kunduz province Muhammad Omar Safi was quoted by Afghan media as saying that military vehicles and other weapons seized by Taliban militants from the Afghan Army were being sent to Tajikistan for repairs. He alleged that the vehicles and weapons had been repaired by Russian military engineers based in Tajikistan before being returned to the Taliban. Safi claimed that such cooperation between the Afghan Taliban and the Russian military has been going on for nearly two years.
In recent months, Afghan officials have voiced concern over what they described as Russian aid to the Taliban.
