AFGHANISTAN FREEZES TIES WITH REGIONAL SECURITY GROUP

RIA Novosti
17:30 | 15/ 09/ 2008

MOSCOW, September 15 (RIA Novosti) – Afghanistan has had virtually
no contact over the past year with a regional security group on the
post-conflict settlement, the head of the Collective Security Treaty
Organization said on Monday.

The CSTO is a security grouping comprising Armenia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

"There has been no cooperation with the Afghan side over the past
year. A year ago, the Afghan side stopped all diplomatic contacts
with CSTO representatives on the issue of a post-conflict settlement,"
Nikolai Bordyuzha.

He added that the behavior could be linked to "big brother giving
the Afghans appropriate instructions."

The CSTO group of the post-conflict settlement in Afghanistan was
established in 2006 and includes national coordinators from all the
CSTO member states. It was meant to provide assistance to Afghanistan’s
law enforcement, drug-control and other security agencies.

Moscow continues to permit non-military supplies for NATO troops
stationed in Afghanistan to pass through Russian territory, despite
suspending in August all peacekeeping operations with NATO for at
least six months.

Russia made the decision to continue supporting NATO operations in
Afghanistan over concerns about the worsening military and political
situation in the Central Asian country amid a rise in extremist
attacks and heroin production.

Since the Taliban regime was overthrown in the 2001 U.S.-led campaign,
Afghanistan has become the world’s leading producer of heroin.

Afghanistan’s opium production increased from 6,100 tons in 2006
to 8,200 tons in 2007, according to the UN. The narcotics trade has
become an acute problem for Russia and the Central Asian republics
due to a continual flow of illegal drugs from Afghanistan.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has about
53,000 troops operating in the country under a UN mandate to help
give security support to the Afghan government and stop the flow of
drugs from the country.

However, despite international efforts, the Taliban, ousted from
power after a U.S.-led military operation in 2001, have stepped up
their operations over the past year with an increase in suicide and
other attacks.

On Sunday two UN doctors and a driver were killed, when a suicide
bomber rammed into their vehicle in southern Afghanistan. And in a
separate incident, around six children died with 12 others wounded
when a roadside bomb detonated outside of the country’s capital Kabul.