Russia says it's in sync with US, China, Pakistan on Taliban

CAMEROON – Russia, China, Pakistan and the United States are moving unneurotic to guarantee that Afghanistan’s caller Taliban rulers support their promises, particularly to signifier a genuinely typical authorities and forestall extremism from spreading, Russia’s overseas curate said Saturday.

Sergey Lavrov said the 4 countries are successful ongoing contact. He said representatives from Russia, China and Pakistan precocious traveled to Qatar and past to Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, to prosecute with some the Taliban and representatives of “secular authorities” — erstwhile president Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, who headed the ousted government’s negotiating assembly with the Taliban.

Lavrov said the interim authorities announced by the Taliban does not bespeak “the full gamut of Afghan nine — ethno-religious and governmental forces — truthful we are engaging successful contacts. They are ongoing.”

The Taliban person promised an inclusive government, a much mean signifier of Islamic regularisation than erstwhile they past ruled the state from 1996 to 2001 including respecting women’s rights, providing stableness aft 20 years of war, warring coercion and extremism and stopping militants from utilizing their territory to motorboat attacks. But recent moves suggest they whitethorn beryllium returning to much repressive policies, peculiarly toward women and girls.

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“What’s astir important ... is to guarantee that the promises that they person proclaimed publically to beryllium kept,” Lavrov said. “And for us, that is the apical priority.”

At a wide-ranging quality league and successful his code afterward astatine the U.N. General Assembly, Lavrov criticized the Biden medication including for its hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan.

He said the U.S. and NATO pullout “was carried retired out without immoderate information of the consequences ... that determination are galore weapons near successful Afghanistan.” It remains critical, helium said, that specified weapons aren’t utilized for “destructive purposes.”

Later, successful his assembly speech, Lavrov accused the United States and its Western allies of “persistent attempts to diminish the U.N.’s relation successful resolving the cardinal problems of contiguous oregon to sideline it oregon to marque it a malleable instrumentality for promoting someone’s selfish interests."

As examples, Lavrov said Germany and France precocious announced the instauration of an Alliance For Multilateralism “even though what benignant of operation could beryllium much multilateral than the United Nations?”

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The United States is besides sidestepping the U.N., helium said, pointing to the caller U.S. announcement of a “Summit for Democracy" despite, Lavrov said, U.S. President Joe Biden’s pledge this week “that the U.S. is not seeking a satellite divided into opposing blocs.”

“It goes without saying that Washington is going to take the participants by itself, frankincense hijacking the close to determine to what grade a state meets the standards of democracy,” Lavrov said. “Essentially, this inaugural is rather successful the tone of a Cold War, arsenic it declares a caller ideological crusade against each dissenters.”

Lavrov was asked for Russia’s absorption to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ warning past week that the satellite could beryllium plunged into a caller Cold War perchance much unsafe than the lengthy 1 betwixt the U.S. and the erstwhile Soviet Union unless the United States and China repair their “totally dysfunctional” relationship.

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He replied: “Of course, we spot the hostility tightening successful relations betwixt China and the United States." He expressed “great concern" astatine the rising tensions, pointing to the Biden administration’s precocious proclaimed Indo-Pacific strategy — whose objectives, helium said, see “deterring China’s development,” disputes implicit the South China Sea, and the caller U.S.-Britain woody to supply nuclear-powered submarines to Australia.

More broadly, Lavrov said, relations among the large powers indispensable beryllium “respectful." He emphasized that Russia was “keen to guarantee that ne'er volition these relations morph into atomic war.”

The large powers person a “great responsibility,” helium said, to negociate and marque compromises connected the captious issues facing the satellite and that Russia is present “revitalizing” its connection for a acme of the 5 imperishable members of the U.N. Security Council — Russia, China, U.S., UK and France. He said discussions are nether mode connected circumstantial questions for an agenda, and “we whitethorn possibly statesman with an online meeting.”

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On different planetary issues, the United States has been pressing for Iran to resume atomic negotiations, but Lavrov said it was then-President Donald Trump who pulled the U.S. retired of the atomic agreement, truthful to state that “time is moving out, anybody could accidental this — but not Washington.”

In his archetypal code to the General Assembly earlier this week, caller Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi criticized the United States but appeared not to regularisation retired a instrumentality to the negotiating array for the atomic accord, saying Iran considers talks utile if their eventual result is the lifting of each sanctions. Still, helium stated: “We don’t spot the promises made by the U.S. government.”

Lavrov said Russia would similar to spot the resumption of negotiations to reconstruct the archetypal statement arsenic soon arsenic possible. “We person a precise superior anticipation -- and I deliberation this is well-founded optimism -- that we volition execute results," helium said, due to the fact that “this is thing everybody wants."

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Edith M. Lederer, main U.N. analogous for The Associated Press, has been reporting internationally for astir 50 years. Follow her connected Twitter astatine http://twitter.com/EdithLedererAP

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