Russia Returns To Afghanistan
18:13 04.12.2024 (Updated: 18:33 11.12.2024)
© Sputnik / Ksenia Kormilitsyna
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The bill, explaining the procedure of how Moscow removes organisations from the lists of terrorists, has just went to the Russian parliament and, according to sources, will clear it maybe this week.
That’s about Afghanistan, of course. Previously the law gave no clues for what to do if the UN or anybody else keeps on listing someone international terrorists, while the Russian government decides to disagree.
Media reports tell us that the general decision to stop calling Taliban* a terrorist organisation have been taken at the very top, so the legal procedures are only a formality. That formality is probably a final part of a long process of Russia’s return to Afghanistan, and doing it not alone, but with its Central Asian partners.
The just concluded visit of President Vladimir Putin to Kazakhstan is a part of that collective regional effort. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, to note, have already relieved Taliban of its terrorist status in their consecutive legislations.
Yet another visit, that is of Sergei Shoigu, currently the Secretary of the Security Council, to Kabul these days broadcasts the same message: we are back, and we are not alone in that regard.
The general idea of Russia and its partners in Central Asia, as formulated by the Vzglyad internet publication, is as follows: Moscow is testing a new type of its South-Eastern policy, the type that takes time and patience. First, any kind of business strategy in Eurasia simply cannot bypass Afghanistan. Second, if we do bypass it, that country will assuredly be used by the West to create problems for everyone in the region, be it India, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan or even China. So the rulers in Kabul, whoever they currently are, have to be a part of all kind of regional projects.
To remind, exactly six months ago I’ve published here an essay Don’t call them terrorists: Taliban gets an image upgrade. So, what has changed in half a year? Most important, we now have a clear picture of possible investment projects, in principle and very generally approved by the Kabul government and well known to investors in Russia, Kazakhstan and other regional nations. A real flurry of visits of prominent Russians to Kabul, as well as several Taliban delegations to business forums in Russia, have helped to get that picture clear.
Mr. Alexander Knyazev of the Moscow Foreign Relations State University puts above everything else the need for a railroad, usually called the Transafghan link. That rather famous megaproject has mainly been pushed by Uzbekistan, but now is popular with all the neighbours of Afghanistan.
The benefits of the quick deliveries on the route from Belarus to Russia to Kazakhstan, and then to Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and to Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf via Pakistan, are all too obvious. The missing link is only 760 kilometers across the Afghan territory and, maybe, will claim six billion US dollars or so.
Then there is a huge irrigation network, mostly called the Qosh Tepa waterworks. It is already in existence in Afghanistan, but it looks like a double-edged sword for its neighbours. A simple look at mountains and rivers in the area tells us that water sources and water flows here is a troublesome problem, and there better be one irrigation system – or else the issue becomes a constant irritant. Like with river Mekong in South East Asia, there can only be one general plan for its use for several nations placed, one after another, along its banks.
Finally, there is that very old and well-known bonanza of Afghanistan’s mineral deposits, that may easily pay for all and every development plans for that country. Lithium is the current craze, and Kabul is “a lithium Saudi Arabia”, as Americans loved to say 10-15 years ago.Moscow’s Rosatom corporation already has experience with developing lithium resources in Bolivia, and now has some contacts with Kabul.
Nothing is wrong, also, with good old copper deposits in Afghanistan, that the Chinese investors used to crave. There is also iron, oil and gas, which, again, may favor Russian investors, with their experience.
All in all we are talking about maybe up to three trillion US dollars’ worth of all kind of deposits, capable of turning the whole Central Asia into a yet faster development area. No other region of the world may boast of having such potential springboard for explosive growth for decades to come.
These prospects have helped to change of Russia’s public opinion on the future dealings with Taliban. The West helped a lot to get such results. Let me revert to my above-mentioned column of six months ago, quoting Mr. Peter Akopov, columnist of the Russia Today agency.
"Everything has changed during two decades of the American occupation of Afghanistan. The Talibs not only kept their influence in the society, they managed to take power bloodlessly after the American retreat. The Talibs are learning the art of managing a nation, they destroy the poppy plantations, that used to flourish under the Americans. They want to build new relations with the Islamic world and with their neighbours, concludes Akopov, so they are not terrorists anymore," he said.
Today, there are much stronger statements in Russian media on the same subject. Taliban is not a terrorist organisation anymore, assert several experts, surveyed by the mentioned Vzglyad publication. Senator Konstantin Dolgov puts it very concisely: there are actors on international scene who merit such title much more than the current masters of Afghanistan.
“The US and European nations actively support Kiev,” says the senator. “So that means that they actually murder civilians (in Russia and Ukraine. – D.K.), they are shelling civilian objects in Russia’s territories with Western weapons and with the help of Western military personnel. They are the real threat. I think that you cannot even start to compare Taliban with that”.
Here we have a point, sorely missing from all kinds of peace proposals for the war in Ukraine. It’s about abhorrent methods of waging a war, employed by Ukrainians and those aiding them. What makes a terrorist? Which actions are legitimate, and which are asking for an international tribunal? Why not insert a point about punishing war criminals into any final document about the future of what will be left of Ukraine?
You may say war crimes is one thing, while terrorism is another. So how about using civilians as living shield, taking them hostages when at war? How about staging fake incidents with “war atrocities”, murdering quite real people in the process, as it happened in the town of Butcha in 2022? And here we are not even starting to talk about the current war in the Middle East.
In any case, an organisation that was blacklisted, “only” being guilty of supporting terrorists in early 2000-s, looks plainly angelic, compared with criminals of today’s wars. So rebranding of Taliban is only natural today.
* Under UN sanctions
Dmitry Kosyrev is a Russian writer, author of spy novels and short stories. He also did columns for the Pioneer and Firstpost.com
