The Russian Ambassador to Tajikistan spoke about the ineffectiveness of the Taliban in ensuring border security and implementing economic programs in Afghanistan.
DUSHANBE, December 18 - Information agency "TASS" (Russia) - "Sangar". Semyon Grigoriev recently stated in an interview with the TASS news agency that the Taliban movement (banned in the Russian Federation), which controls power in Afghanistan, has not yet ensured the security of neighboring countries.
He said that in 2023, extremists tried many times to enter Tajikistan from Afghanistan, which is under Taliban rule, but they failed.
In this interview, Grigoriev said: “We don’t see any special progress in the Taliban’s fulfillment of promises regarding ensuring the security of states neighboring Afghanistan.”
He explained: “This entire year, attempts by extremists to break into the territory of Tajikistan have been recorded on the Tajik-Afghan border. Fortunately, all these attacks were promptly suppressed by the Tajik security forces.”
Grigoriev said that in Afghanistan “the socio-economic sphere continues to degrade.”
“The country is literally teetering on the brink of a severe humanitarian crisis, aggravated by the West’s irreconcilable refusal to unblock Afghan assets,” he noted.
Grigoriev emphasized that the close attention of the leaders of Russia and Tajikistan to the Afghan issue is fully justified and requires constant synchronization of watches. He pointed to a serious increase in the smuggling of synthetic drugs from Afghanistan, while "Western countries have practically curtailed funding for programs to combat Afghan drugs crossing the Tajik-Afghan border."
“An additional destabilizing factor in Afghanistan is the massive influx of Afghan refugees evicted by Pakistan into the northern provinces. In addition to the fact that this is already changing the ethnic composition of the local population with inevitable conflicts on this basis, there may well be terrorist elements among the settlers,” the ambassador added.
According to him, Russia will do everything possible to prevent attacks on its allies, one of which is Tajikistan.
It should be noted that the Central Asian republics and Russia are not satisfied with the current situation in Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban and believe that its continuation will contribute to the spread of terrorism.
Not long ago, the head of the CSTO Joint Staff, General Anatoly Sidorov, also expressed concern about the current situation in Afghanistan and said that the Taliban do not control the entire country.
The Taliban group has never responded to the concerns of the world, especially regional governments, about the spread of the threat of terrorism.
