Russia has warned of the possibility of civil war after the withdrawal of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces from Afghanistan, and while calls for serious regularity in the peace negotiations continue, the US military continues to withdraw and hand over military bases to Afghan forces.
Today, Wednesday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said, during his participation in the Moscow International Security Conference, that there are fears of a recurrence of civil war after the withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan. Read also Imran Khan in an article in the Washington Post: Pakistan will be a partner for peace in Afghanistan, but it will not host US bases Can Turkey convince the Taliban to keep its forces in Afghanistan? The Washington Post: The killing of a prominent army commander highlights fears in Afghanistan after the US withdrawal
Shoigu
The Russian minister called for the involvement of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, saying that it would be impossible to untie the Afghan knot without dealing with Islamabad and Tehran.
Shoigu also believed that for 20 years, NATO had not been able to achieve significant results in stabilizing and forming stable government structures in Afghanistan.
In simultaneous statements, the Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, expressed his country’s concern about the rise in tension in Afghanistan with the foreign military withdrawal from there.
Peskov said that Moscow is closely watching the developments in Afghanistan, noting the emergence of new flashpoints of concern to Russia and its allies in the region.
The Afghan Foreign Minister Hanif Atmar said earlier that the withdrawal of foreign forces will be completed in two weeks.
US withdrawal and Taliban expansion
With the acceleration of the withdrawal of US and NATO forces from Afghanistan, the Taliban has expanded its control and is threatening major cities such as the capital of Kunduz province (northern), raising fears that this will weaken the government in Kabul and possibly overthrow it.
On Tuesday, the US Central Command announced that the United States had handed over 6 military facilities to the Afghan Ministry of Defense.
The Central Command added – in a statement – that Washington has completed more than 50% of the stages of withdrawal from Afghanistan.
She indicated that she expects to transfer more bases and military equipment to the Afghan Ministry of Defense in the future to help it achieve stability and defense of Afghanistan.
For his part, US State Department spokesman, Ned Price, said on Tuesday that Washington urges all Afghan parties to participate in the negotiations to reach a political settlement.
Price added, in a telephone press briefing, that Washington continues to support the ongoing diplomatic process in the Qatari capital to reach a political settlement to the conflict.
He stressed that the Taliban movement is responsible for many acts of violence in Afghanistan in recent days and weeks, stressing that the world will not accept a government in Afghanistan based on violence, and that any government in the future must respect human rights, as he put it.
In this context, the US delegate to the UN Security Council, Linda Thomas Greenfield, affirmed that the world does not recognize any government that exercises force in Afghanistan, and Greenfield stressed that negotiations are the only way to a comprehensive political settlement.
In a previous interview with Al-Jazeera, the spokesman for the political office of the Taliban, Muhammad Naim, said that the current military escalation was initiated by the government forces, not the movement.
During a special session of the UN Security Council, yesterday, Tuesday, the UN Special Representative for Afghanistan, Deborah Yayons, said that the announcement of the withdrawal of all international forces led to a shock in the Afghan political system, noting that the Taliban movement took control early last month of 50 of Afghanistan’s total of 50 provinces. There are 370 provinces. https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.468.0_en.html#goog_357373864
Explosion targeting a passenger bus
On the ground, Al-Jazeera correspondent quoted an Afghan government source as saying that there were dead and wounded today, Wednesday, in the explosion of an explosive device that targeted a passenger bus in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan.
In the past weeks, there have been numerous attacks on civilian targets in Afghanistan, killing and wounding dozens, and ISIS claimed responsibility for some of these attacks.
This comes amid a major field escalation, as Afghan forces and the Taliban are engaged in confrontations on different fronts.