Working with the US and others to keep Taliban accountable: Russia

Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia said on Saturday that his country, along with the United States, China, and Pakistan, is working to ensure that the Taliban keep its promises regarding changes in Afghanistan. 

These promises include forming a genuinely representative government and prevent extremism from spreading.

Lavrov said that representatives from Russia, China, and Pakistan had traveled to the Qatari capital of Doha and then to Afghanistan’s capital Kabul to engage with both the Taliban and representatives of “secular authorities”, including former president Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, who headed the ousted government’s negotiating council with the Taliban.

“What’s most important is to ensure that the promises that they have proclaimed publicly to be kept. And for us, that is the top priority,” Lavrov said, according to the Associated Press.

Lavrov noted the Taliban’s interim government does not reflect “the whole gamut of Afghan society — ethnoreligious and political forces — so we are engaging in contacts, they are ongoing.”

The Taliban has promised an inclusive government, a more moderate form of Islamic rule than when they last ruled the country from 1996 to 2001 including women’s rights, stability after 20 years of war, and stopping militants from using their territory to launch attacks. But recent moves suggest they may returning to more repressive policies, particularly toward women and girls.

He addressed wide-ranging issues at a press conference before his address at the UN General Assembly, including Iran’s nuclear program.

The United States has been pressing for Iran to resume nuclear negotiations, but Lavrov said it was 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.”

 He said Russia would like to see the resumption of negotiations to restore the original agreement as soon as possible. But the leaders of Iran’s new government “are saying that they need at least a couple of weeks, and hopefully not more, to put together the negotiating team because they’ve had some staff changes,” he said.

(With inputs from the Associated Press)