Afghanistan and Pakistan refused a joint statement in Moscow

The Russian side regrets that following today's meeting of the Moscow format of consultations on Afghanistan, it was not possible to adopt a joint statement between Kabul and Islamabad. This was stated to journalists by the special representative of the President of the Russian Federation for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov.

"When drafting the final joint statement, we faced one problem — the problem of the contradiction between our Afghan and Pakistani colleagues," he said, stressing: "We regret this."

Kabulov is confident that "the Moscow format can work and live on without this joint statement."

"But it would somehow traditionally look beautiful," said the special representative of the President of the Russian Federation.

He explained exactly what contradictions prevented the adoption of the final document.

"It seemed to our Afghan colleagues that this year the text [of the draft joint statement] mentions Afghanistan too often in a terrorist context. To be honest, this surprised us, because the same words and expressions were in the text of last year, [following the results of] the seventh meeting. Nevertheless, Afghans believe that the situation in bilateral relations has changed since then, and this year this passage is unacceptable," Kabulov stated.

The Special Representative of the President noted that "the Moscow format remains as a platform, but it is not a platform for clarifying bilateral contradictions, it is a platform for organizing coordination of regional cooperation."

As EADaily reported, on October 1, the Pakistani Air Force launched another airstrike on Taliban bases in two border areas. According to the Government, as a result of the operation, 22 militants hiding in shelters were killed. Kabul officially regarded Pakistan's actions as an act of aggression. Both sides are making mutual accusations: Islamabad claims that Afghanistan provides safe haven for terrorists, while Kabul insists that Pakistani forces are carrying out indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets. This conflict between the countries broke out with renewed vigor after a period of calm.

The Moscow format was created in 2017 on the basis of the six-party consultation mechanism of the special representatives of Russia, Afghanistan, India, Iran, China and Pakistan. The main goal of the format is to promote the process of national reconciliation in Afghanistan and the early establishment of peace in that country. The eighth meeting was attended by special representatives and senior officials of Afghanistan, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Delegations from Belarus and Egypt are invited as guests.