{"id":15555,"date":"2017-08-24T23:50:52","date_gmt":"2017-08-24T18:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=15555"},"modified":"2017-08-24T23:50:52","modified_gmt":"2017-08-24T18:50:52","slug":"russian-terms-trumps-afghan-policy-as-regrettable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=15555","title":{"rendered":"Russian terms Trump’s Afghan policy as regrettable\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

MOSCOW, August 24 (TNS):<\/strong>\u00a0After China, Russia has called the new US strategy for Afghanistan regrettable, saying the blueprint unveiled by President Donald Trump was a \u201cfutile course\u201d.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a press-conference in Moscow on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia has expressed \u201cregret that the main focus of the new (Afghanistan) strategy announced by Washington is regulation by methods of force.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are certain this is a futile course,\u201d he said, furthermore rejecting suggestions that Moscow was behind supplying the Taliban.<\/p>\n

Trump this week announced 4,000 new troops for deployment to Afghanistan, backtracking from his earlier promise to end America\u2019s longest war, though other specifics of the plan remain unclear.<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had on Tuesday suggested that Moscow is arming the Taliban. \u201cTo the extent Russia is supplying arms to the Taliban, that is a violation, obviously, of international norms,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not the first time we are accused of supporting and even arming the Taliban,\u201d Lavrov said. \u201cNot one fact has been presented\u201d to support this.<\/p>\n

The spokesperson for the foreign ministry\u00a0Maria Zakharova reiterated the same in a press conference<\/p>\n

The American policy\u00a0\u201cfocuses on the search for a military solution to the Afghan issue, particularly through increasing the number of foreign troops,\u201d said\u00a0Zakharova, according to Russia\u2019s official\u00a0TASS news agency.<\/p>\n

She denied US\u00a0accusations on Moscow\u2019s arms supplies to the Taliban, saying: \u201cWe once again declare that we do not provide any support to the Taliban.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesperson added that Moscow was ready to assist Kabul in training and equipping national security forces and reaffirmed its openness to cooperate with both the US and other countries<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, a similar allegation was made by NATO commander Curtis Scaparrotti, who said Moscow is assisting and possibly supplying the Taliban and its influence is growing in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Lavrov said Moscow only contacts the Taliban for two things: ensuring safety of Russian citizens in Afghanistan and pushing the Taliban to hold talks with the Afghan government.<\/p>\n

The resurgent Taliban is an officially banned organisation recognised as a terrorist group in Russia but some Russian officials have said Moscow is exchanging information with the group when it comes to fighting Islamic State jihadists.<\/p>\n

Moscow fought a disastrous military campaign in Afghanistan in the 1980s which was widely considered a factor in the Soviet Union\u2019s eventual collapse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MOSCOW, August 24 (TNS):\u00a0After China, Russia has called the new US strategy for Afghanistan regrettable, saying the blueprint unveiled by President Donald Trump was a \u201cfutile course\u201d. Speaking at a press-conference in Moscow on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia has expressed \u201cregret that the main focus of the new (Afghanistan) strategy announced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,565],"tags":[830,733],"class_list":["post-15555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","category-moscow","tag-moscow","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15557,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15555\/revisions\/15557"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}