Why did Russia not support the UN Security Council resolution on Afghanistan?
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution on Afghanistan, with Russia and China abstaining from voting.
The document calls on the Taliban to respect human rights and allow free exit from the country for everyone, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
13 countries supported the resolution. Moscow explained that when adopting the document, its comments were not taken into account, in particular the need to fight the terrorist groups “Islamic State” and the “Islamic Movement of East Turkestan”. According to the representative of the Russian Federation at the UN, Vasily Nebenzi, here one can see an attempt to divide terrorists into “us” and “strangers”.
In turn, former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, former UN Deputy Secretary General Sergei Ordzhonikidze believes that the West is primarily interested in leaving as many problems as possible in Afghanistan.
“This means the continuation of the civil war, which will have certain spillovers towards Central Asia,” Ordzhonikidze told Kommersant.
According to him, the Russian Federation does not want terrorism to reach Russian gates, and this explains Moscow’s position regarding the adoption of the resolution.
“I fear that terrorism could become a big problem if ISIS is not stopped. There is hope that there are sound forces among the Taliban, but the ideology and practice of the Islamic State are completely clear,” the diplomat said.
“The West is concerned about fictitious human rights in Afghanistan. We need to stop the war there, and not think about the fact that some rights are not respected!” Ordzhonikidze concluded.
Omar Nessar, director of the Center for the Study of Modern Afghanistan, points out another aspect of the voting in the UN Security Council.
“Even before the fall of Kabul, it became obvious that the positions of Russia and China largely coincide on the Afghan issue. This suggests that Russia is trying to create additional pressure on the United States, and also that the Russian Federation and China are preparing to be among the first to recognize the new Afghan administration,” Nessar believes.
He is convinced that Russia’s position should be considered “exclusively in the context of the geopolitical confrontation with the West, especially with the United States.”
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