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Putin takes stand on Taliban, mocks US for failing in Afghanistan

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5 years ago

August 17, 2021

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday expressed the belief that imposing any form of governance on Afghanistan would be counterproductive.

“We know Afghanistan well, we know how this country is organised and how counterproductive it is to impose any form of governance.’

In the 80s, Russia, then Soviet Union, was routed back from Afghanistan with the help of the US, which backed Osama bin Laden with money and materiel to lead the Afghan forces.

And when Osama’s al Qaeda struck America in 2000, things no longer remained the same. The US, under George Bush decided to topple the Taliban government for hosting bin Laden.

And the methodology was the imposition of western ideology on the Islamic state.

“But the Americans tried to create what they consider to be democracy there,” Lavrov said at the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University.

Western attempts to impose their standards of democracy on Afghanistan were a grave mistake, the Russian foreign minister continued.

Lavrov said that a recent statement issued by the Taliban (banned in Russia) on the formation of the Afghan government is a positive sign.

“The fact that the Taliban in Kabul are now declaring and proving in practice their readiness to respect the opinion of others, I think, is a positive signal.

“In particular, they said that they are ready to discuss the government, in which not only they, but also other Afghan representatives will participate,” Lavrov said during his speech at the university.

He said Vladimir Putin’s Russia is not planning to hold contacts with the purely terrorist groups in Afghanistan but the Taliban movement (banned in Russia) which has a political office.

“I said political forces. This excludes the groups that exist there and are associated with Al-Qaeda, IS (terrorist groups banned in Russia), and are purely terrorist groups.

“We do not class them as political forces. The Taliban has a recognised political office, “Lavrov said.