Russia, China, Pakistan, and therefore the us are working together to make sure that Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers keep their promises, especially to make a genuinely representative government and stop extremism from spreading, Russia’s secretary of state said Saturday.
Sergey Lavrov said the four countries are in ongoing contact. He said representatives from Russia, China, and Pakistan recently traveled to Qatar then to Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, to interact with both the Taliban and representatives of “secular authorities” — former president Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, who headed the ousted government’s negotiating council with the Taliban.
Lavrov said the interim government announced by the Taliban doesn’t reflect “the whole gamut of Afghan society — ethnoreligious and political forces — so we are engaging in contacts. they’re ongoing.”
The Taliban have promised an inclusive government, a more moderate sort of Islamic rule than once they last ruled the country from 1996 to 2001 including respecting women’s rights, providing stability after 20 years of war, fighting terrorism and extremism, and stopping militants from using their territory to launch attacks. But recent moves suggest they’ll be returning to more repressive policies, particularly toward women and girls.
“What’s most vital … is to make sure that the guarantees that they need proclaimed publicly to be kept,” Lavrov said. “And for us, that’s the highest priority.”
At a wide-ranging press conference and in his speech afterward at the UN General Assembly, Lavrov criticized the Biden administration including for its hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan.
He said the US and Nato pullout “was administered with none consideration of the results … that there are many weapons left in Afghanistan.”
It remains critical, he said, that such weapons aren’t used for “destructive purposes.”
Later, in his assembly speech, Lavrov accused the us and its Western allies of “persistent attempts to diminish the UN’s role in resolving the key problems of today or to sideline it or to form it a malleable tool for promoting someone’s selfish interests.”
As an example, Lavrov said Germany and France recently announced the creation of an Alliance For Multilateralism “even though what quite structure might be more multilateral than the United Nations?”
The us is additionally sidestepping the UN, he said, pointing to the recent US announcement of a “Summit for Democracy” despite, Lavrov said, US President Joe Biden’s pledge in the week “that the US isn’t seeking a world divided into opposing blocs.”
“It goes without saying that Washington goes to settle on the participants by itself, thus hijacking the proper to make a decision to what degree a rustic meets the standards of democracy,” Lavrov said.
“Essentially, this initiative is sort of within the spirit of a chilly War, because it declares a replacement ideological crusade against all dissenters.”
Lavrov was asked for Russia’s reaction to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ warning last week that the planet might be plunged into a replacement conflict potentially more dangerous than the lengthy one between the US and therefore the former Soviet Union unless the us and China repair their “totally dysfunctional” relationship.
He replied: “Of course, we see the strain tightening in relations between China and therefore the us .” He expressed “great concern” at the rising tensions, pointing to the Biden administration’s recently proclaimed Indo-Pacific strategy — whose objectives, he said, include “deterring China’s development,” disputes over the South China Sea, and therefore the recent US-Britain deal to supply nuclear-powered submarines to Australia.
More broadly, Lavrov said, relations among the large powers must be “respectful.” He emphasized that Russia was “keen to make sure that never will these relations morph into nuclear war.”
The major powers have a “great responsibility,” he said, to barter and make compromises on the critical issues facing the planet which Russia is now “revitalizing” its proposal for a summit of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — Russia, China, US, UK, and France. He said discussions are underway on specific questions for an agenda, and “we could begin with a web meeting.”
On other global issues, the us has been pressing for Iran to resume nuclear negotiations, but Lavrov said it had been then-President Donald Trump who pulled the US out of the nuclear agreement, so to declare that “time is running out, anybody could say this — but not Washington.”
In his first speech to the overall Assembly earlier in the week , new Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi criticized the us but appeared to not rule out a return to the negotiating table for the nuclear accord, saying Iran considers talks useful if their ultimate outcome is that the lifting of all sanctions. Still, he stated: “We don’t trust the guarantees made by the United States government .”
Lavrov said Russia would really like to ascertain the resumption of negotiations to revive the first agreement as soon as possible. “We have a really serious hope — and that i think this is often well-founded optimism — that we’ll achieve results,” he said, because “this are some things everybody wants.”
