Afghanistan: economic projects and political difficulties

Moscow considers cooperation in the energy sector to be a priority in relations with Kabul, along with this Afghanistan supports the readiness of companies from the Russian Federation to participate in international energy projects. As RIA Novosti reported with reference to the Deputy Minister of Energy, Yury Sentyurin, Afghanistan has set an ambitious target to achieve full energy independence and declared itself as a full member of the major energy projects, particularly CASA-1000 (for the supply of electricity from Central Asia to South Asia) and TAPI (for gas supply from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and India). In all these projects, Russian businessmen intend to take a part. However, the situation in Afghanistan is quite complex.

"It is a war. And the Afghans do not conceal the fact that it is imposed by external forces, in the form of Pakistan. In addition, in over 15 years the international security forces have done nothing to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan,’’ a member of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs Igor Morozov complains.

According to him, drug production and drug trafficking have increased 40-fold in 15 years.

"On the territory of Afghanistan there are about 50 thousand militants. They receive military equipment, weapons, ammunition, and the source of funding is very serious. Pakistan cannot finance such a large-scale military action unilaterally, in fact, with five divisions deployed,’’ Morozov said.

With reference to their Afghan colleagues, he said: "After the military hostilities the national army found the documents of killed Talibs of the ISI secret service of Pakistan, documents of Pakistan's special forces officers and certificates that they have repeatedly demonstrated in front of journalists and notified the US military command. It has not brought any specific result, because the large-scale activities are expanding, and the beginning of work of the commission negotiating group ‘4+1’ – the USA, China, Afghanistan and Pakistan – does not bring any results."

Morozov associates the lack of results with the fact that, apart from China, no one is interested in a settlement of the conflict: "Each country pursues its own goals. Pakistan would like the Taliban to come to power again, because they have confirmed the Durand Line [the boundary between Afghanistan and Pakistan that the Afghan government refuses to recognize as a state border]. Islamabad expects that, with the arrival of the Taliban, this problem will be solved for Pakistan, and it will again exert political influence over the neighboring country. The Afghan authorities have repeatedly shown the Taliban and ISIS military camps that were appearing, their combat camps, the directions for future attacks, the US military did not react to this information. The US is not interested in stabilizing the situation in the north of Afghanistan, especially in the provinces, which are on the contact line with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.’’