Putin: ex-Soviet nations worried about terrorist bases in Afghanistan
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
.c The Associated Press
MOSCOW (AP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that
Russia and other ex-Soviet nations are concerned about terrorist
training bases in Afghanistan and that country’s booming drug trade.
Speaking after a meeting of leaders of six former Soviet nations, all
members of a Russia-dominated security grouping, Putin said terrorists
in Afghanistan enjoyed some foreign backing.
“We are seriously concerned about terrorists’ training bases
continuing to function on Afghan territory, some with direct
involvement of some secret services,” Putin said without
elaboration. “Afghanistan also has remained the source of increasing
drug trafficking.”
Members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which unites
Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Belarus and Armenia, long
have expressed their worries about drugs and instability spilling over
from Afghanistan.
Authorities in Uzbekistan, an ex-Soviet nation which isn’t member of
the Collective Security Treaty, said militants from Afghanistan helped
stage May’s uprising in the Uzbek city of Andijan.
At a separate meeting of security officials from former Soviet
nations, a senior Russian official said militants who underwent
training in international terrorist camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan
had used Iran and Central Asian nations for transit.
Yuri Sapunov, the head of the anti-terrorist department at Russia’s
Federal Security Service (FSB), the main KGB successor agency, also
said some of the militants fighting in Chechnya and other restive
Caucasus regions in Russia’s south had come from Western Europe.
“Channels for bringing terrorists to the North Caucasus begin in
Western European countries and run through Turkey, Azerbaijan and
Georgia,” Sapunov said, according to the Interfax and ITAR-Tass news
agencies.
Sapunov reaffirmed Moscow’s criticism of the United States and other
Western nations for their refusal to extradite Chechen rebel
leaders. He said FSB agents in Chechnya had killed 58 militants since
the year’s start.
During Thursday’s meeting of the Collective Security Treaty, its
members signed an agreement to foster cooperation in training military
personnel and set up a commission intended to promote closer ties
between their defense industries.
Putin said member states also were planning to develop a joint air
defense system and build up their collective rapid reaction forces.
These forces could be used for peacekeeping operations, Putin said.
Putin said after the talks that the group plans to establish contacts
with NATO.
06/23/05 10:16 EDT