Zamir Kabulov: There have been no direct contacts or talks between Moscow and Washington on Afghanistan
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, said there had been no direct contacts or talks between Russia and the United States on Afghanistan.
“No contact has been made, which is why no direct talks have taken place on this issue so far,” Kabulov told Russia’s TASS news agency.
He added that this situation continued in 2023, and that year there was no bilateral contact between the two countries regarding Afghanistan.
Kabulov noted that there were no talks even with Thomas West, the then US special envoy for Afghanistan, during that period.
The Kremlin’s special envoy for Afghanistan noted that the last notable interaction was in 2021;
When Thomas West first visited Russia within the framework of the Moscow format, he emphasized that the international situation at that time was completely different.
Kabulov also referred to the 2023 spring summit in Doha, which was held at the initiative of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
According to him, on the sidelines of this meeting, he and China’s special representative for Afghanistan affairs told the UN Secretary-General that they could not work in a joint team with a country that had frozen the financial assets of the Afghan people and had not yet returned them.
These statements come at a time when relations between Russia and the United States remain tense overall, and Afghanistan is one of the issues that has so far failed to create a basis for direct cooperation between the two powers.
