Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at a UN Security Council Briefing on the situation in Afghanistan
Mm. President,
We thank UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Head of the UNAMA Tadamichi Yamamoto for the analysis of processes taking place in Afghanistan.
We share many of the assessments contained in the relevant Secretary-General’s quarterly report. For our part, we would like to point out the following.
We assign to UNAMA a key role in coordinating international assistance to Afghanistan.
We keep close track of the tense situation in this country. We cannot but be concerned about regular major terrorist attacks, i.a. those involving suicide-bombers, in various cities of the country. Unfortunately, there is still a record large number of victims among civilians – women and children in the first place. Today Ms. Aisha Khurram spoke many heartfelt words and gave evidence of what countless calamities the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan sends to the Afghan people. Terrorists kill Afghan military and police, and, as Mr. Yamamoto highlighted today, international personnel, including UN officers.
We are seriously concerned about the remaining presence of ISIL in Afghanistan. Despite sporadic success of Afghan forces, militants manage to keep their positions and preserve their influence in the country. Another worrisome aspect is ISIL creating so called “sleeper cells” in the North-East, and diversifying methods and channels of recruitment – of African youth in the first place. This poses a real threat to security of Afghanistan, and its neighbors – Central Asian republics and Russia’s southern regions.
We closely follow the situation with countering drug trafficking in Afghanistan. Drug threat remains a serious problem not only for the country, but for the region and the whole world. Drug dollars ensure significant financial backup for terrorists. We believe it is crucial to continue and enhance international efforts to counter this evil.
We stand ready to implement our obligations to promote collective response to this threat, i.a. with active participation of the UN Office on Drug and Crime. Our commitments find a practical implementation in Russian efforts to train drug policemen from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia; as well as regular assistance to the UNODC-backed global initiative “Paris Covenant”. We also remain committed to our obligations in this area in the framework of regional organizations – SCO and CSTO.
Mm. President,
Russia has been friend and partner of Afghanistan for many years. We traditionally stand for reaching the long-awaited and sustainable peace on the much-suffering Afghan land.
We attach specific importance to promotion of Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process. We are genuinely interested in soonest national reconciliation and subsequent post-conflict settlement in the country. We stand ready to set forth our comprehensive assistance to this process. This is what our efforts aim at, including efforts made within the Moscow Format and assistance to starting Intra-Afghan dialogue in Moscow.
We support resuming of dialogue between the U.S. and the Taliban movement. In this context, we attach specific importance to the consultations of the “troika” of special representatives from Russia, China, and the U.S. with inclusion of key regional stakeholders in order to create favorable conditions for further advancement of national reconciliation. We believe participation of Pakistan in recent meetings held in July in Beijing and in October in Moscow was very useful.
Mm. President,
Afghan community is on the threshold of a new era, where the key role in solving the country’s problems will be played by Afghanis themselves. We agree that pending peace process in Afghanistan should be inclusive to the maximum; it should involve all public and political forces of the country, including the opposition.
The internationally acclaimed principle of Afghan-led and Afghan-owned dialogue on conflict settlement manifested itself through an Intra-Afghan meeting that Afghan diasporas organized in Moscow in February 2019. This meeting brought together leading political parties of the IRA and Taliban representatives.
Unleashing the regional potential is relevant as never before: the potential of the SCO in the first place. We want to highlight Afghanistan’s participation in SCO sessions as an observer. We specifically welcome such mechanism as the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group and the roadmap that it signed with the government of Afghanistan. We see many opportunities for enhancing interaction between the IRA and the CSTO.
What is worth being mentioned specifically is the results of the presidential elections to have taken place on 28 September. It is deeply saddening that difficulties and delays in vote count have led to destabilization of the internal political situation and have entailed mass demonstrations. We reiterate our principled position: vote should be a step towards uniting nation rather than dividing it.
Mm. President,
There is no military solution to the crisis in Afghanistan. The only way to settle it is to achieve Afghan-wide concord by political and diplomatic means. We are convinced that all peace initiatives and negotiator efforts should serve the purpose of uniting the country and all Afghanis without exception. It is close international cooperation (at the regional level in the first place) that can help achieve our common goal, which is to make this country a territory of sustainable peace, stability, and prosperity.
Thank you.
