Russia: NATO’s return to Afghanistan poses risk of new instability

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned against renewed attempts to return NATO military infrastructure to Afghanistan, saying such actions could become a dangerous source of future conflict.

According to Russian media, Lavrov in a press conference in Samarkand, Uzbekistan said that Western countries have launched a new format of consultations in Doha through the United Nations.

“The attempt to return the military infrastructure of NATO countries to Afghanistan under various pretexts is unacceptable, and such efforts are underway,” he added.

“We are witnessing the West actively trying to re-enter the Afghanistan game, a game it left after the Taliban returned. We have no problem with this, but the West presence should be fair and without hidden agendas,” Lavrov added.

He said that these efforts will create a new “time bomb,” and perhaps not even a “slow bomb”, he added.

He has said that Moscow is closely monitoring Western efforts to “influence Central Asia and other strategic regions.”

Lavrov furthered, “We are resolutely opposed to the politicization of cooperation and the imposition of ideological programs, especially the attempts of some Western countries to dominate this and other geopolitical spaces.”

This comes when the Taliban Foreign Ministry also said that Russia has agreed to accept Taliban’s diplomat at the ambassadorial level.