Members of the “Extended Troika” —Russia, China, U.S. and Pakistan — a diplomatic format set up to coordinate policy on Afghanistan, are currently working out the date for their next meeting, which should take place before the end of February, Russian Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan and Director of the Foreign Ministry’s Second Asia Department Zamir Kabulov told TASS on Jan. 31. He also reported that a number of other nations, including Japan, are preparing to reopen their embassies in Kabul, which will help gradually normalize the situation in Afghanistan, while laying the groundwork for restoring ties between the country’s new leadership and other countries.
Russia is focusing its efforts on “completion of the inter-Afghan peace process” (which requires, for one, an “ethnically-balanced government,” Kabulov said), as well as how the international community can participate “in the inclusive post-conflict rehabilitation” of Afghanistan. To help foster the peace process, Russia would be happy to host talks in Moscow between representatives of the Taliban government and domestic opposition forces, should they wish to do so, the envoy told TASS.
There are reports that such talks did begin. A source “close to the Resistance Front"—the Tajik-Afghan force led by Ahmad Massoud—told Afghanistan’s TOLOnews yesterday that Russia had mediated a meeting recently in Moscow between Massoud and the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Taliban government, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. The meeting remains unconfirmed, however; there is “no official information … about the trip of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar to any country,” a government press spokesman told TOLOnews.
