Moscow has hosted the fifth round of consultations of the Secretaries of the Security Councils on Afghanistan without participation of the Taliban representative, Afghanistan’s Khaama Press news agency reported on February 8.
National Security Advisors of Iran, India, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan were among the participants.
The Moscow security meeting was held in the absence of the representative of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, although Islamic Emirate’s spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid called on Moscow last week to invite a representative of the Afghanistan’s caretaker government.
Afghanistan’s TOLOnews reported on February 5 that Mujahid said: “The Islamic Emirate has not yet been invited but those meetings that discuss Afghanistan, Afghanistan should be included to defend its position and discuss the issues.”
IRNA notes that addressing a regional security dialogue on Afghanistan in Moscow on Wednesday, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) of Iran Ali Shamkhani said ultra-regional intervention in Afghanistan can cause the insecurity in the country to spread to the entire region.
He said that all countries with a role in Afghanistan should not allow ultra-regional forces to interfere in the country as he warned that the intervention would turn the instability in Afghanistan into a regional calamity.
Shamkhani reportedly noted that consolidation of peace and security in Afghanistan is a main priority for Iran as he insisted that millions of Afghan refugees have been accommodated in Iran despite the fact that the country is suffering from unilateral and illegal sanctions imposed by the United States.
The senior Iranian security official said that Afghanistan should seek to expand its national unity initiative to allow all people to participate in the politics and governance of the war-torn country.
He said stability in Afghanistan will be guaranteed if the country commits to its responsibilities regarding the control of terrorism.
The fifth round of consultations of the Secretaries of the Security Councils on Afghanistan has reportedly come as the security situation in Afghanistan is rapidly deteriorating and has already led to the closure of several foreign embassies in Kabul.
Experts note that less than two years after seizing power in Kabul, the Taliban movement, banned in Russia and unrecognized in the world, proved itself to emerge as a fast-growing power on the map of world terrorism, representing its rapidly developing Asian breed.
