The countries of the region are monitoring the current situation in Afghanistan and can create a regional alliance to protect themselves
Author: Ahmad Saidi, Senior Afghanistan Expert
The Moscow meeting will take place on November 16, next Wednesday, and its entire agenda and discussion will be devoted to Afghanistan. For this reason, I want all my friends to know the history of this meeting and follow it...
The Moscow format was created in 2017 on the basis of the mechanism of consultations between Russia, China, Afghanistan, Iran, India, and Pakistan. The last meeting in this format took place on October 19, 2021, and was attended by ten countries, as well as the representative of the Taliban, Abdusalam Hanafi, the administrative deputy prime minister.
The date of the fourth meeting was announced on November 16, 2022, with the difference that representatives of the Taliban and the United States were not invited to this meeting. The participants of the Moscow Consultative Meeting on Afghanistan are Russia, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
Also in previous meetings, the focus of discussions was different and the presence of the Taliban was due to the conditions of recognition and their struggle to win the trust of the participants in this meeting. But this time the Taliban didn't get that chance. This question has been raised many times by the countries of the region and the world that the Taliban have not fulfilled their obligations and the recognition criteria.
The remaining topics of discussion, like previous meetings, will relate to terrorist threats from Afghanistan against its neighbors and Central Asian countries, the fight against the production and transit of drugs, human rights and women's issues, the economic situation, and humanitarian assistance.
In this regard, the Taliban said that without their presence, this meeting would be incomplete and useless.
The non-invitation of the Taliban testifies to the distrust of the countries participating in this meeting. In a joint statement with his Russian counterpart Lavrov, the Indian Foreign Minister expressed concern about terrorist threats in Afghanistan during his visit to Moscow and asked the Taliban to fight the rise of terrorism in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, reports from Afghanistan, Taliban meetings with the US intelligence chief, and millions of dollars of weekly aid to the Taliban raise many doubts and questions about the Taliban's commitment to protecting Afghan soil from being turned into a production base for terrorism.
In addition, regional conflicts between China and Taiwan, Russia and Ukraine, internal Iranian protests, and constant tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia, as well as rivalry between India and Pakistan - all make the countries of the region fear the presence of the powerful interventionist (the US) in Afghanistan. They should be alarmed and take measures to prevent the situation from worsening.
Sergey Lavrov said that the Taliban would be informed about the results of this meeting. Such a change in the position of the Moscow-format countries towards the Taliban may send a signal to Taliban supporters that the countries of the region are monitoring the current situation in Afghanistan and can create a regional alliance for self-defense.
The Doha agreement between the US and the Taliban benefited both sides, and then the US infamously withdrew from Afghanistan, leaving them with $3 trillion worth of military equipment. And then the US openly and covertly provided financial and diplomatic assistance, while continuing to carry out its military attacks on the Taliban. These changes were not hidden from the intelligence organizations of neighboring countries and the region. China is threatened by areas inhabited by Uighurs, and Russia by Islamic terrorist organizations linked to the Taliban. The rise of the Taliban is tantamount to an increase in the terrorist threat and the escalation of extremism in Central Asia, followed by China, Russia, and India.
At the meeting in Moscow, the world's three largest and most powerful countries, Russia, India, and China, along with their neighbors in Afghanistan (probably) will form a joint military force to defend Afghanistan's northern borders and demonstrate their unity and strength against the US and its puppet forces in the form of the Taliban.
