Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the overnight collapse of the American-backed government in Afghanistan could pose a serious threat to countries surrounding the troubled Central Asian nation, including his own.
Speaking on Sunday as part of a meeting with members of the governing United Russia party in the run up to parliamentary elections next month, the president said that the number of civilians fleeing Kabul poses challenges for the international community. “Who are these refugees? How can we tell? There may be thousands, or even millions,” Putin said. “The border is a thousand kilometers - they will get on everything, a car, even a donkey, and flee across the steppe.”
According to the Russian president, this poses a potential security threat and “is a direct concern for our citizens.” He added that “we do not want fighters disguised as refugees to turn up in our country.” Citing a spate of terrorist attacks driven by separatism in majority-Muslim regions in the country’s south, such as Chechnya, two decades ago, the president insisted that “we do not want to repeat what happened in the 90s and mid-2000s... we had these horrors that are now being repeated on the territory of Afghanistan.”...
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Russia should not let militants from Afghanistan disguised as refugees enter its territory, President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday.
ReplyDeleteThe head of state added that the Russian authorities would contacts the Western states to do their best to ensure stability in Afghanistan.
"We don’t want militants under the disguise of refugees to appear here [in Russia] again. We will do everything, in particular in contact with our Western partners, to ensure stability in Afghanistan as well. But we do not want us to at least somehow repeat the situation of the 1990s and early 2000s. At that time, we were actually fighting in the North Caucasus. These horrors we see on the territory of Afghanistan now, we saw on our territory not so long ago. Now everything is stable and quiet. There are still some problems, but this is not comparable to what happened before," Putin said on Sunday at a meeting with representatives of the United Russia party.
The President reiterated that Russia does not need "such elements [militants] on its territory, neither from Afghanistan, nor from any other country.
"Why are we dealing with Syria? In order to prevent Syria from turning into some kind of Afghanistan, from turning into a hotbed of terrorism," the head of state explained.
He added that he very much hopes that the Russian Foreign Ministry, with the support of the parties represented in parliament, will continue to responsibly deal with issues of national security. Putin expressed gratitude to the United Russia and all parties in parliament that "make decisions about national security.".
TASS