MoFA: Afghanistan’s foreign policy never in pawn of 3rd country

Russia pulls back from cooperating with U.S. on Afghanistan, the NY Times reported on Saturday.

Afghanistan has been the only one area where the United States’ and Russia’s interests coincide, but now Russia seems to be disengaging with both the US and the Afghan government.

“We won’t join the useless events, and we’ve already told the Americans, Russia would sit out any talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government in Kabul, backed by the United States, Pakistan and China, honestly speaking, we’re already tired of joining anything Washington starts, we have no desire to participate in what the Americans organize on the fly just for their own pre-election interests and where they give us the role of extras on the set” President Vladimir V. Putin’s envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir N. Kabulov, has told Russian state news media.

Yet, an official in the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) says Afghanistan’s foreign relations is not in the pawn of any country.

“Afghanistan’s relations with a country is never in the pawn of a third country,” Shekib Mustaghni, MoFA spokesman said,” we expect our friend countries to have the same view about Afghanistan.”

NY Times have quoted an Afghan official worry about the Russia pull back speaking on the condition of anonymity,”Bilaterally, we have struggled to convince the Russians on certain issues because they increasingly see us only as part of this larger game with the United States”.

The Russian government has instead decided to address on its own what it sees as the immediate security threat from the chaos in Afghanistan and the emergence there of militants other than the Taliban, especially those from the Islamic State (IS).

Based on reporting from NYT, Ariana News correspondent Fahim Noori contributed