Kabulov: No current Moscow-Washington contacts on Afghanistan

KABUL (Pajhwok): Russia and the United States currently have no bilateral contacts on Afghanistan, according to Russian Special Representative for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov.

Speaking to Russia’s state news agency TASS, Kabulov said there has been no dialogue between Moscow and Washington on Afghan issues so far.

“No, they have not made contact, which is why there has been no such conversation,” Kabulov told TASS.

He noted that Russia and the United States also had no bilateral engagement on Afghanistan throughout 2023, adding that “no channels were left” for communication.

According to Kabulov, there was no dialogue during that period with the then US Special Representative for Afghanistan, Thomas West.

Kabulov recalled that the situation was different in 2021, when West visited Moscow as part of the Moscow Format consultations on Afghanistan.

“At that time, the international situation was completely different,” he said.

Referring to an UN-hosted meeting on Afghanistan convened by Secretary-General António Guterres in Doha in the spring of 2023, Kabulov said both he and China’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Yue Xiaoyong, were in attendance, along with Thomas West.

“West and I were there. However, my Chinese colleague and I told Guterres that we could not be on the same team as a country that had seized the money of the Afghan people and was not returning it,” Kabulov said.

kk/sa