Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s opening remarks at a meeting with Acting Foreign Minister of Afghanistan Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi, Tunxi, March 31, 2022

Mr Muttaqi,

Colleagues,

It is important for us to have this opportunity to conduct a bilateral meeting on the margins of the conference which our Chinese friends convened.

We presented our detailed approach to the solution of the problems of Afghanistan, inherited by your people after the 20 years of activities of the so-called coalition.

We are convinced that the international community must actively cooperate with your Government, encouraging you to take the necessary steps for the official recognition by the United Nations and all its members.

And the key is to ensure the inclusivity of your Government, of your Government structures, not only from the ethnic-confessional point of view but also from the point of view of involving other political forces in the Government. In particular, as I understand, Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah are in Kabul, and they are ready to contribute to the consolidation of the country under the new circumstances.

We will encourage national dialogue under the leadership of the Taliban. And, of course, humanitarian assistance is the priority at this stage, and the international community must actively participate in those efforts. When we met in Moscow last fall in the Moscow Format, we issued an appeal for the international community and the United Nations to convene a conference on humanitarian assistance, on urgent humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, the United Nations bureaucracy was taking time to respond to this call, and, at last, a conference was convened or is being convened today, as far as I understand, in Great Britain. And we have reasons to believe that it is not by accident that they did it on the same day as we assembled in China. We have reasons to suspect that it was done on purpose just to counter the conference to our meeting.

As they say, better late than never, and, from this point of view, this effort by the international community on the humanitarian front must be encouraged. But, in the mid-term and long-term, it is crucial to start, parallel with the humanitarian problems, to start resolving the problems of sustainable economic development as a basis for the sustainable solution of social issues.

And recently, just a few days ago, our delegation consisting of economic agencies and infrastructure companies’ representatives visited Kabul, and I will not repeat what they were discussing, but the overall assessment is that this was a positive meeting, and the directions of our future cooperation were discussed, and I believe they have support on both sides.

And, as you have heard just now, all neighbours of Afghanistan and other friends, like Qatar and Indonesia, are ready to contribute to these efforts for the rehabilitation of your economy. But we all believe that the key burden, financial burden to finance these endeavours must be borne by the United States and its allies, who were present in Afghanistan for 20 years and did not leave behind any industrial or any other useful enterprise. Instead, they just arrested your money, and now half of this amount they are going to reserve for the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks, while Afghanistan has nothing to do with that terrible, horrible crime.

We talked to the Americans regarding the need for them to contribute a lot to the rehabilitation of Afghanistan, of its economy. And just today, on the margins of our meetings, Zamir Kabulov, who is our Special Envoy of the President on Afghanistan, met with his colleagues in the format of the Expanded Troika (Russia, China, the United States plus Pakistan). And, of course, we keep this format open for our Iranian colleagues. And, after they resolve their problems with the United States, I think, they should join us.