Russia, China mull larger role in Afghanistan

AVA- “We must redouble our efforts to preclude the proliferation of conflicts from Afghanistan and to promote a political settlement of the Afghan crisis,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.
Lavrov cited the threat of the ISIS in Afghanistan as the cause for greater involvement by the bloc — a prospect that offers a role reversal from Syria, where the U.S.-led coalition is fighting ISIS while Russia has backed Syrian President Bashar Assad in the long-running civil war.
“All of us are concerned about the strengthening of extremists, primarily from the so-called ISIS, who enter Afghanistan via Iraq and Syria and are becoming entrenched in Afghanistan’s northern provinces, which border on our allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO),” he said.
U.S. officials have accused Russia of arming the Taliban, which has carried out an array of suicide bombings and surprise attacks against Afghan forces over the last year.
"The Russians seem to be choosing to be strategic competitors in a number of areas," Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said a year ago. "We're going to have to confront Russia where what they're doing is contrary to international law or denying the sovereignty of other countries. For example, any weapons being funneled here from a foreign country would be ... a violation of international law, unless they're coming through the government of Afghanistan for the... Afghan forces. And so that would have to be dealt with as a violation of international law.”
Lavrov denied that charge as an “unprofessional” accusation at the time. On Tuesday, he endorsed expedited negotiations between the Taliban and the central government of Afghanistan.
“We reaffirmed our resolve to promote an active involvement of all Afghanistan’s neighbors in these efforts,” Lavrov said Tuesday. “The SCO is a convenient natural platform for promoting a settlement in Afghanistan, because Afghanistan and all its neighbors have either full membership or observer status in this organization.”