On Tuesday, November 19, Russian business representatives met with Deputy Minister of Economy of Afghanistan Abdul Ghani Baradar in Kabul. He invited Russian entrepreneurs and investors to look for prospective collaboration in various sectors of the country’s economy, including industry, trade, transport, agriculture, healthcare and infrastructure.
In addition to Baradar, other members of the Taliban government (continuing status as an organization banned in Russia) were also at the meeting. Among them are – Acting Minister of Trade Nuriddin Azizi, Acting Minister of Urban Development Hamdullah Numani and Acting Minister of Transport Hamidullah Akhundzada.
Abdul Ghani Baradar said that Afghanistan is always ready to welcome domestic and foreign investors and will provide them with all the necessary conditions for doing business in the country. He assured his Russian and Afghan colleagues of his readiness for partnership, emphasizing the rich natural resources of his state.
The Russian delegation expressed deep interest in investing in Afghanistan, in particular in such sectors as transport, railways, healthcare and agriculture, and also expressed readiness to share experience and cooperate with the Islamic Emirate to achieve mutual benefit, the Afghan side stated. Russian-Afghan cooperation continues to gain momentum, despite the Taliban movement’s continuing status as an organization banned in Russia.
Despite the grim picture of turmoil and instability that has emerged in Afghanistan since the Taliban came to power, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has demonstrated a unique ability and efforts to resolve the Afghan crisis. As a regional organization, the SCO has shown interest in Afghanistan since its creation in 2001, primarily because the country’s stability affects its members, such as Pakistan, India, China, Russia, Iran and the Central Asian region. In this regard, in 2005, the SCO-Afghanistan contact group was created. Its main objectives are to establish dialogue with Kabul, combat security threats in the region, drug trafficking and organized crime, as well as contribute to the restoration of a peaceful, stable and economically prosperous state. However, as violence in the region escalated and US influence grew following its invasion in the country, the Contact Group lost its relevance and was disbanded in 2009.
Afghanistan received observer status in the SCO when President Hamid Karzai visited China in 2012 and signed the SCO counter-terrorism protocol in 2015. In 2018, Afghanistan officially reaffirmed its commitment to combating terrorism, extremism, drug trafficking and economic cooperation. The Afghan Contact Group was revived in 2017 and held annual meetings before the Taliban took power.
Today, during a period of global economic and political instability and conflicts in the Middle East, the revival of the activities of the SCO-Afghanistan contact group is more relevant than ever. Integrating Afghanistan into the Belt and Road Initiative will allow China to fill the economic and political power vacuum.
Uzbekistan, a member of the SCO, also plays an important role in dealing with the Taliban because many Uzbeks live in Afghanistan, although they are persecuted. Turkmenistan takes a neutral position, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan take a wait-and-see position. Tajikistan supports the pre-Taliban government and hosts Afghan refugees and politicians.
The differences between India and Pakistan regarding Afghanistan could not be more serious. India was the last regional stakeholder to reach out to the Taliban, while Pakistan has friendly ties and influence with the previous and current Taliban regime.
Some of Afghanistan’s most pressing problems fall outside the organization’s mandate. Recognition, sanctions and humanitarian assistance are the responsibility of the UN.
More than 90% of Afghans are at risk of starvation. The SCO’s response to the humanitarian crisis was country-specific. For example, India sent medical aid and a shipment of wheat in collaboration with the World Food Programme. So far, $2.4 billion has been raised, less than the $4.4 billion requested by the UN.
The Taliban regime has violated its commitment to establish a representative and inclusive government. Restrictions on women’s freedom and human rights have threatened recognition, humanitarian assistance and access to frozen assets.
The situation is complicated by disagreements between SCO members at present. However, the revival of the activities of the SCO-Afghanistan contact group would contribute to the solution to the Afghan crisis in a more targeted and organized way, not within initiatives of a single SCO member country.
The Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense holds an enormous aviation park that includes planes and helicopters made in the USSR which require maintenance. Among them are such plane models as the “Antonov” and the helicopters “Milya”.
After the Taliban grabbed the power in the country, the USSR aviation heritage has become of a particular interest to many Russian and foreign companies that provide the maintenance of planes but do not have a proper license for it. Indeed, the only Russian organization that is authorized for the maintenance of aviation vehicles located out of Russia is the National Aeronautics and Space Council (the NASC). It has a broad experience of recovering of planes and helicopters made a few decades ago and is licensed to carry out repairs of the certain models of planes, such as “Antonov” and “Milya”.
The Afghanistan’s military and political elite is interested in proper maintenance of its aviation park. Yet, the new government is often manipulated by non-licensed and fraud contractors which are aimed at getting the access to the USSR aviation heritage in Afghanistan and selling it out. The current Russian-Ukraine conflict is one more reason of why this issue is so important now. The military operations and conflicts are the perfect time for those who are eager to get most benefits from valuable military assets.
With the Taliban grabbing the power in Afghanistan in 2021 the country has been walking through a rocky path. The current group in power can hardly hold the country in peace and stability. Lack of management and political experience of the Taliban are beneficial for external parties. The current situation with the USSR aviation heritage is another example of it. Afghanistan like never before needs to raise an internal dialogue with all sides interested in saving the country’s future.
As the world economic and diplomatic order is dynamically changing, Afghanistan is playing a more important role in the game change. A transit center between Pakistan, Central Asia, Russia and Europe, today Afghanistan is a strategic logistic corridor and a player in a new export and import relations.
For instance, Russia is on the way to adopt the idea of recognizing Afghanistan under Taliban. The facts speak for themselves: the opening of the Afghanistan Embassy in Russia with the Taliban’s “chargé d’affaires”, the Kremlin’s invitation of the Taliban delegation to the 25th anniversary “St. Petersburg International Economic Forum ”, which took place from June 15–18, 2022, the negotiation process between the Taliban and the then government of Afghanistan, which took place in Moscow in 2019 etc. But all this does not mean recognition of the Taliban government by Russia.
The first step towards an active and qualitative change in Taliban Afghanistan would be the development and adoption of the main law – the Constitution. The presence of a new constitution is a necessary condition for the Afghan state to become a player in the world arena as such a move determines the framework for the development of any state.
However, there are a number of difficulties in this matter, and the first of them is the fragmentation and clan structure of power within the Taliban, there are a number of groups with different leaders.
To solve these issues Afghanistan first of all has to adopt a number of basic principles such as to turn the government system into the Islamic republic with strong presidential power; to update its territorial structure, e.g.to adopt a decentralized unitary state, or a constitutional national federation. Consequently, a representative body will be needed to resolve issues between autonomies. Finally, regions should be enlarged and “national” autonomies should be formed (while maintaining the division into regions within autonomies) without the right to secede from Afghanistan, the capital Kabul should become a city of federal significance – a separate administrative unit that is not part of any national autonomy.
Russia, as the epicenter of acceleration process to turn the world to East, should contribute to the moderate transformation of the Afghanistan under Taliban, with a view to its further recognition in the international arena. However, there are a number of difficulties that will need to be addressed, ranging from humanitarian to religious and military issues. The process does not promise to be easy, but the security of the Russian Federation depends on the results of the work.
FILE – In this Nov. 30, 2017 file photo, American soldiers wait on the tarmac in Logar province, Afghanistan. The U.S. is pausing movement of troops into Afghanistan and quarantining 1,500 new arrivals to country due to virus. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)
As the Western media continues to blame Russia’s policy in Afghanistan, a never-ending information war seems to take a new round aggravating the peace process in the country.
The leading U.S. media outlets claimed Russia was funding Taliban referring to the movement’s commanders. However, both the New York Times and Insider refused to name not only their sources but also American official spokesmen who reportedly said they had found out links between Taliban’s and Russia’s banking accounts. The outlets also claimed Russia’s financial support to Taliban was aimed at killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but no evidence and details have ever been provided.
The claims of the Western media seem even more baseless after the interview with Qatar-based Taliban’s official spokesperson Mohammad Sohail Shahin had been released.
Speaking to journalists covering the Russian policy in the Middle East, Shahin denied any funding from Russia. “This statement is proofless and has nothing to do with the truth. We believe such claims appear in the context of the internal political struggle in the United States and are organized by opponents of the Afghan peace process”, Mohammad Shahin said. “The main goal of these campaigns is to undermine the Afghan peace process”, he added.
In February, 2020, Washington signed a peace deal with Taliban confirming to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan. However, a year on, the agreement’s major clauses have not come to effect. Much due to internal confrontations between the U.S. establishment and the U.S. Conservative Party. With Biden Administration taking the power and its policy focused on international intervention, the process is likely to be delayed. Yet, procrastination of the peace process in Afghanistan may lead to irreversible and tragic consequences in an already war-torn country and cause a total halt of economic and industrial development.
Moreover, in a current situation of limited on-spot-covering due to the closed borders, independent and non-affiliated media are not able to provide an objective view of the peace process development in Afghanistan. And this is often turned into advantage by the Western mainstream media.
On December 1, the car of the Russian Embassy with several employees inside was hit by an improvised explosive device in Kabul. Russian diplomats received a slight concussion.
According to preliminary estimates, the terrorist attack most likely targeted a pickup truck of the Afghan national security forces with servicemen on board moving ahead of the diplomatic vehicle, however, the attack against Russian citizens cannot be excluded, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
“On December 1, while a Russian diplomatic mission’s car was driving along the road near the Russian embassy in Kabul, an improvised explosive device was detonated. The employees of the Russian diplomatic mission in the vehicle received a slight concussion”, Zakharova said.
The recent attack that affected the employees of the Russian diplomatic mission in Afghanistan might be aimed at setting contradictions in Russia’s cooperation with the inter-Afghan peace settlement countries, as well as excluding Moscow and it partners from it including the Moscow negotiation platform.
“We demand that the Afghan side conduct a thorough investigation of the incident and take comprehensive measures to ensure the security of personnel of Russian foreign missions in Afghanistan. The Russian Embassy in Kabul is implementing additional measures aimed at increasing the security of personnel and facilities of the diplomatic mission”,-Zakharova added.
As the rate of violence in Afghanistan continues to increase the authority of the Islamic republic in the international diplomatic community is undermining which may also affect the further position of the contributing countries. Only in recent weeks Kabul was hit by a number of terrorist attacks, with more than 50 people killed in two assaults on educational centres and a rocket attack.
