Friday, 27 March 2009Russia on Friday opened an international meeting on fighting drug trafficking and unrest in Afghanistan. The conference is being led by the Shanghai Group but the meeting is also being attended by Shanghai Group observers, NATO officials, Afghanistan and representatives of the G8 group of leading industrialized countries.
Russia's foreign minister said Thursday that stability in Afghanistan will be helped by an international conference hosted by Moscow that reflects the Kremlin's desire to expand its role in regional affairs. Lavrov said the main aim of the conference was to draw up a declaration with a concrete action plan for helping Afghanistan. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is also attending.
"Moscow realizes that the situation in Afghanistan threatens its security," said Alexander Konovalov, the head of Moscow-based Institute of Strategic Assessment. "Russia has become the main destination for drugs from Afghanistan."
The United States has sent Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Patrick Moon to the conference. However, despite the rumors there appeared little chance he could meet Iranian delegates there. 'Such a meeting is not on the agenda,' Iran's ambassador to Russia Mahmoud Reza Sajjadi was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
The meeting comes ahead of another international conference on Afghanistan in The Hague on March 31, due to be attended by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other top diplomats.
The Russian moves indicated that Moscow was ready to help the U.S. and NATO efforts in Afghanistan on its own conditions while maintaining control over transit corridors. That could give Moscow important leverage in talks with Washington on other issues, experts say.
The Moscow gathering will closely precede a larger U.N.-chaired conference on Afghanistan to be held in the Netherlands on March 31.
by Simge Soyer, JTW
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Friday, 27 March 2009
Journal of Turkish Weekly
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