Afghanistan’s national security advisor starts visit to Russia

MOSCOW, July 25. /TASS/. Afghanistan’s National Security Advisor Mohammad Hanif Atmar starts his visit to Russia on Monday. On July 26 he will hold talks with Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev. Atmar’s visit will end on July 27. Afghanistan’s Embassy in Russia said that he plans to hold several separate meetings with representatives of the Russian leadership and discuss "different aspects of security." Taliban and IS The situation in Afghanistan remains tense and shows tendency toward deterioration. Russian presidential envoy for Afghanistan, director of the Second Department of Asia at the Russian Foreign Ministry Zamir Kabulov said in April that Afghanistan is in full-scale crisis that threatens its statehood. The Taliban presents a traditional threat to Kabul, and Russian envoy to NATO Alexander Grushko said they control more and more provinces. Militants try to seize provincial centers and have stepped up their activities in the north of the country, in close proximity with Afghanistan’s borders with other Central Asian countries. Attempts to involve the Taliban in discussions on national accord so far remain unsuccessful despite the establishment of the four-party contact group (US, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan) with the aim of resolving this problem. The Russian Foreign Ministry said earlier that "one should not count on establishing direct contacts between the Afghan government and Taliban movement any time soon." Another threat for Afghanistan’s statehood has recently emerged in the form of cells of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization (banned in Russia). According to Russia’s estimates, there are up to 10,000 IS militants in Afghanistan, while the number stood at around 100 at the start of 2015. IS activities also threaten neighboring countries. "The Afghan wing of IS is definitely aimed at Central Asia. They even use Russian language. They are obviously trained for Central Asia, for Russia," Kabulov noted. IS regularly claims responsibility for deadly terrorist attacks in Afghanistan. The latest attack hit a demonstration in Kabul killing 80 people and injuring 231. Russian response Moscow does not leave the current situation in Afghanistan without attention. At the session of heads of states of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member countries in Tashkent on June 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin said: "It is important to step up countering the threat of terrorism and trans-border crime coming from this territory together with Afghan partners, to work on stopping drug production and trafficking." Russia is already making efforts to assist Afghanistan in its fight against the threat coming from terrorist and extremist groups. Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai visited Moscow in mid-June. After the visit, he said that Moscow and Kabul reached an agreement on exchanging intelligence. He also said the issue was raised of providing military support to Afghanistan by Russia. "We gave to the Russian Security Council the list of what we needed," the diplomat said. Work on fighting against the terrorist threat is also carried out in multi-party formats. The issue of developing additional measures on neutralizing threats from international terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan was raised at the session of heads of security agencies and special forces of CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) member countries in Minsk on May 19. Frozen cooperation Afghanistan cooperates on security not only with Russia but also with NATO. The United States is playing the leading role (with a 8,000-strong contingent deployed in the country together with around 2,000 from other NATO member countries). NATO’s course toward freezing cooperation with Russia has affected capabilities of joint fight against terrorism and extremism. Several programs were cancelled, including intelligence cooperation on finding drug laboratories. The Russian Foreign Ministry repeatedly noted possibilities to cooperate with the West on the issues of mutual interest. According to Grushko, Russia and NATO member countries had similar assessments of security situation in Afghanistan at the Russia-NATO Council session in Brussels on July 13. Read more