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Russia Seeks Own Interests in Post-War Afghanistan
MOSCOW, Nov 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Fearing instability in Central Asia, Russia has moved into diplomatic high gear ahead of next week's United Nations sponsored talks on power-sharing in Afghanistan, seeking to keep its Northern Alliance allies at the heart of a future government purged of the Taliban, news agencies reported.
As the squabbling Afghan factions prepare to thrash out the future at a mountaintop hotel outside Bonn starting Monday, a high-level Russian delegation has been in Kabul to make sure Moscow's interests are not forgotten, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The Russian delegation, including defense, interior and emergency ministry officials, arrived Sunday in Kabul and has begun to discuss the reopening of Russia's embassy, possibly on temporary premises while the former compound is restored.
U.N. officials in Kabul have privately said that the Russians are complicating efforts to form a new power-sharing administration.
However, according to analysts, Russia will avoid an outright rift with the United States, which is dangling the carrot of billions of dollars of reconstruction aid if the Alliance is cooperative.
"The value of its relations with the United States is much more important" for Moscow than the future government in Kabul, Viktor Kremenyuk of the U.S.A.-Canada Institute in Moscow told AFP.
A staunch ally of the U.S.-led war on Afghanistan, Russia disagrees with the United States over U.S. wishes to see "moderate" Taliban representation in a power-sharing interim administration that would govern for two years.
Russia fears that the active involvement of the Taliban, which it accuses of aiding Muslim independence fighters in Chechnya, could allegedly destabilize its volatile southern rim and the energy-rich Central Asian states for years.
In the same context, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov on Wednesday made it clear that Russia intended to take an "active" role in the creation of a new government in Afghanistan that "discriminated against the Taliban's" participation in a new multi-ethnic coalition, BBC's online news service reported.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told senior lawmakers Thursday that he had taken this message to U.S. President George W. Bush, at their summit earlier this month, pushing Americans to accept that the Northern Alliance must play "one of the key roles" in the new government.
The international community, under U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan Francesc Vendrell, is insisting that the Northern Alliance hand over the reins of power to a broad-based government.
Moscow, which has armed the Northern Alliance in its five-year civil war against the Taliban, reportedly recognizes the need to represent all members of Afghanistan's patchwork of ethnic groups, including the majority Pashtun who formed the backbone of the Taliban.
But it has been increasingly concerned that Western powers are ready to back a new coalition government for Afghanistan that would - seeking to pacify Pakistan to the south - include a large Taliban contingent.
Echoing Russia's view, the Alliance's political figurehead, Burhanuddin Rabbani, the U.N.-recognized president of Afghanistan who was ousted from power in 1996, has ruled out any role in the Kabul government for members of the Taliban.
"Among the Taliban, there are some people who we can deal with, not in the government but at other levels," he said in an interview in Wednesday's edition of Russia's daily newspaper,
Vremya Novostei. "We are talking about a few individuals."
According to AFP, only Iran, which also backs the Northern Alliance and insists that Rabbani is the "legitimate" president of Afghanistan, has moved as rapidly to restore diplomatic relations and may be the first country to set up an embassy in Kabul.
Iran, meanwhile, has warned against the deployment of more foreign troops in Afghanistan, saying they would only complicate the crisis in the country, BBC said.
In a meeting with his British counterpart, Jack Straw, in Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said, "handling Afghan issues should be left to the Afghan people."
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