Moscow, Russia: Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will raise issue of use of helicopters without any identification marks and busy in transporting Islamic State (Daesh) terrorists within Afghanistan and delivering weapons to terrorists.
According to information available from Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during his presence in Tashkent Conference on Afghanistan will raise Russian concerns about use of helicopters without any identification marks which are reportedly busy in transporting Islamic State terrorists from one place of the country to another place within Afghanistan and delivering weapons to terrorists.
“We are alarmed by the growing number of terrorist activities being carried out by the Taliban who stage armed attacks across Afghanistan, as well as by the increased ISIS presence in Afghanistan’s northern provinces that border CIS countries. We are concerned about reports regarding the use of helicopters without any identification marks in many parts of Afghanistan that are delivering terrorists and arms to the Afghan branch of this terrorist organisation. We believe that reports to this effect made by Afghan officials should be thoroughly investigated,” commented an official of Foreign Office when asked to brief about issues Foreign Minister Lavrov can include in his speech at Tashkent Conference on Afghanistan being held from today.
Foreign Office official also said that Russia is also concerned about historic increase in production of opium poppy in Afghanistan because Afghan drugs are used to provide financial assistance to terrorists and extremists in Afghanistan as well as beyond it.
Meanwhile Foreign Office released an official statement about Tashkent Conference that states as follow:
We support the Tashkent conference on a settlement in Afghanistan as an event that meets the goals that are promoted by the Moscow format and the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group and hope that it will attain its goals.
We believe that the fundamental principles of these formats, such as regional representation as well as honest and equal interaction of all international partners based on respect for the national interests of all the regional countries and using the potential of respected organisations, primarily the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), are very well suited to the goal of launching an intra-Afghan peace dialogue. We reaffirm our firm support for Kabul’s policy of promoting cooperation with the SCO.
