Russian media reports say Russia’s top diplomat on Wednesday called on countries neighboring Afghanistan not to host US or NATO military forces after they pulled out of Afghanistan earlier this year.
Iranian media reports says the foreign ministers of Iran, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan took part in the meeting in person, while their counterparts from China and Russia attended the event through videoconferencing
Speaking over video at a conference about Afghanistan held in the Iranian capital of Tehran yesterday, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, told Afghanistan's neighbors to refuse to host U.S. or NATO military forces withdrawing from Afghanistan, Reuters reported.
"We … call on Afghanistan's neighboring countries not to allow a military presence of U.S. and NATO forces which plan to move there after leaving Afghan territory," Lavrov said, according to TASS.
Meanwhile, Reuters says Russia’s government is worried both about terrorists claiming to be refugees to move from Afghanistan into Central Asia and about Western powers expanding their presence in an area once occupied by the Soviet Union and now viewed by Moscow as a defensive buffer to Russia's south, according to Reuters.
Despite the latter concern, however, a Russian newspaper reported this summer that Russian President Vladimir Putin had offered the U.S. the use of his country's military bases in that same area, Reuters noted.
Russia houses one of its largest foreign military bases in Tajikistan, which has a long border with Afghanistan.
Since the Taliban takeover in August, Russia has reportedly further increased its military presence there in both personnel and hardware.
