Afghanistan Most Serious Security Challenge For Region, Says Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Afghanistan remains one of the most serious security challenges in the region. Putin added that after two decades of US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) presence, Afghanistan has been unable to address terrorist threats.

The Russian President discussed Afghanistan at the sixth Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Astana Kazakhstan on Thursday.

Putin also discussed the terrorist attack that targeted the Russian Embassy in Kabul on September 5 and said that such terrorist attacks in Afghanistan confirm that terrorism remains a major challenge in Afghanistan.

Addressing the participants, the Russian president noted that to normalise the situation in Afghanistan, joint support to improve the economic situation of the country is needed.

He added, "We want reparation for the losses caused to Afghans during the years of occupation and the release of illegally frozen reserves of Afghanistan."

CICA is an organisation that has 27 countries as members and eight other countries with five organisations as observer members. Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, South Korea, Russia, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam are permanent members of CICA.

However, Afghanistan’s representative was not present at the sixth summit of CICA.

CICA observer member countries are Indonesia, Ukraine, the United States, Belarus, Japan, Philippines, Laos, and Malaysia.

The United Nations, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the International Organisation for Migration, the Arab League, and the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic-speaking countries are the observers’ organisations in CICA.