A diplomat says hasty pullout of the US forces from Afghanistan may entail unpredictable consequences

MOSCOW, February 9./TASS/.Russia is ready to restore cooperation with the US and NATO on the settlement of common tasks in Afghanistan, Russian president’s special envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, has told TASS. "We, for our part, are ready to restore cooperation with the US and with NATO countries to settle our common tasks in Afghanistan," said Kabulov, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Second Asian Department.

He said Moscow had not yet held official contacts with the Donald Trump Administration regarding the Afghan problem. "If you look at it in a general context, the current period is far from the best timing for a withdrawal of foreign troops, including the U.S. units, from Afghanistan," said Kabulov, who is director of the Second Asian Department at the Russian Foreign Ministry. "The situation in the sphere of security there is degenerating and a whole set of factors makes the Afghan national security forces incapable of putting up resistance to the armed opposition on their own." "Given this situation, a hasty pullout of foreign military may bring about unpredictable aftermaths and destroy whatever encouraging achievements of the past few years," Kabulov said. "The situation on the Afghanistan-Turkmenistan border causes certain concern here," the diplomat said. "We have information about some 1,000 gunmen of ISIS (the former name of Islamic State, a terrorist organization outlawed in Russia) stationed in Afghanistan’s north-western provinces," said Kabulov, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Second Asian Department. "We have been marking activity of IS (a terrorist group outlawed in Russia) in Afghanistan from the summer of 2014," Kabulov said.

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