The counter-terrorist operation of the international coalition and the serious military successes of the United Front, which in recent days has been able to liberate a significant part of the territory of Afghanistan from the Taliban, have lent a special topicality and urgency to defining the tasks of assistance to be rendered by the international community to the Afghans in the matter of the post-conflict restoration of peace, and, among other things, in the political reconstruction of their country.

Of course, it is above all up to the Afghans themselves to implement those tasks. There can be no two ways about it.

At the same time, it is also obvious that it would not be easy for the Afghans to accomplish these tasks by themselves, without the assistance from the international community. An effective solution of these tasks is needed not only by the Afghan people but also by the entire international community. Otherwise the terrorist, narcotic drug and other threats emanating from Afghanistan and affecting the interests of the whole mankind cannot be neutralized.

We are confident that the central role of assisting in turning Afghanistan into a normal, stable and flourishing state must be played by the United Nations. It is not only because preventing the threat to the regional and international security, emanating from the territory under the Taliban control, directly falls within the competence of the UN Security Council and the General Assembly. We believe that it is only within the United Nations framework that practical solutions can be found, acceptable to all the parties in a peace process and would, correspondingly, ensure the cooperation of the participants in their implementation.

How do we visualize the principles of a future political structure in Afghanistan?

Firstly, it must be a peaceful and genuinely independent state enjoying friendly relations with its neighbors and the international community as a whole. Its government must not be pro-something, it must only be pro-Afghan. It is necessary to prevent that country from ever in the future posing a threat to the regional and international security.

Secondly, the effectiveness of the would-be political system of Afghanistan depends directly on endowing the new government with a genuinely broad-based and multi-ethnic character, and accommodating the historical Afghan realities. It is important to avoid the domination, in the new political alignment, of any single ethnic group over the others. It is absolutely indispensable to work out acceptable forms of partnership between the Afghan Pushtus, Tajiks, Hazareans and Uzbeks. A stable political regime can be established only on this basis.

Thirdly, the Taliban Movement which has stained its reputation by supporting international terrorism, cannot have a place within the government structure of Afghanistan. Without liquidating this anti-people and criminal force, one cannot hope Sovetskaya Rossiya achieve a final eradication of terrorism in Afghanistan.

In the process, we ought to draw a clear line of distinction between the Taliban and the Pushtus and the traditional Afghan clergy who in their bulk do not share their radical views.

The time appears to have come to give serious thought to convening, under the UN aegis, an international conference on Afghanistan that would act as the guarantor of the post-conflict statehood of the country and work out a broad program of its economic rehabilitation.

We regard the Six plus Two Group to be an important format within the framework of which a balance of the interests of different parties concerned can effectively be found. In the process, we believe there is no alternative to the work within the group proceeding on the basis of close partnership in the search for variants of the post-conflict political structure of Afghanistan, that would meet the interests of the international community as a whole and the countries of the region, in particular.

We attach major importance to the meeting of the group, held the day before with the participation of the ministers of foreign affairs, which had a detailed exchange of opinions concerning the tasks of the international community in assisting the Afghan people in building a new life.

We believe that the joint statement, adopted on the results of the meeting, provides adequate and substantive assessments of the situation in Afghanistan and ways to rectify it. It is important, among other things, that the ministers have condemned the Taliban's links with international terrorism and supported the efforts of the Afghan people to get rid of that regime.

Mr. President,

We deem it a priority and urgent task to reactivate the humanitarian aid to the Afghan people. Russia will continue to effectively coordinate its large-scope efforts in this area with the international activities, above all, through the instrumentality of the United Nations. Simultaneously, we ought to begin planning, on the United Nations basis, a long-term strategy of international assistance to the rehabilitation and development of Afghanistan by way of complementing the political efforts to untie the Afghan conflict knot.

In conclusion, I would once again like to welcome the decision of the United Nations Secretary General to appoint Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi his Special Representative on Afghanistan with wide powers. We reaffirm our readiness for the closest cooperation with him on the entire range of the Afghan subject area.


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© Publication of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.