On July 16, the fourth meeting of the foreign ministers of the “CA5"—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan—with Russia, took place in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and the diplomats issued a joint statement expressing their hope for constructive talks between official Kabul and the Taliban. Their meeting, announced at Maria Zakharova’s Russia Foreign Ministry briefing on July 9, was held on the sidelines of the high-level conference on “Central Asia-South Asia: Regional Interconnectedness. Challenges and Opportunities.”
Their joint statement continued, “In this context, we welcome efforts to achieve national reconciliation in Afghanistan at all dialogue venues, including the Istanbul process, with consideration for the results of the 9th Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process ministerial conference held in Dushanbe on March 30, 2021, the extended Troika (Russia, the U.S., China and Pakistan) and the Moscow format consultations on Afghanistan.
“We emphasize the practical importance and efficiency of the results of the Seventh Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA VII), held in Ashgabat on November 14-15, 2017. It was designed to integrate Afghanistan into the world’s economic system.”
