Moscow to conditionally support Afghanistan’s candidacy for SCO membership: Envoy

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) - A Russian envoy said on Tuesday that Moscow will conditionally support Afghanistan's candidacy to become a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

“I think yes,” Russia’s special envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov said during a briefing in Moscow, in response to a corresponding question on the matter.

However, Kabulov said Afghanistan’s potential membership to the SCO is not only a matter of Russia’s recognition of the Taliban, but also of the country’s economy due to the organization’s economic nature.

“Afghanistan must bring its economy into some relative order so that the rest of the SCO members consider its entry expedient,” Kabulov said.

Kabulov further said Moscow does not rule out cooperation between Afghanistan and the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization because of the Taliban’s “same attitude towards the fight against both international terrorism and drug crime.”

He went on to express Moscow’s interest in further expanding cooperation with Afghanistan in fighting international terrorism and drug crime.

He also said Russia did not discuss the issue of excluding the Taliban from the list of terrorist organizations with Central Asian states.

“We hope that both Russian and Afghan businesses will find common areas of application that will lead to further growth in the volume of trade between the two countries,” he added.

On May 27, Kabulov told the Russian state news agency TASS that a proposal to remove the Taliban from Moscow’s list of banned organizations has been submitted to President Vladimir Putin for a final decision.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in separate remarks, said the initiative to possibly exclude the Taliban from the list "reflects the current objective reality."

Russia included the Taliban in its list of banned terrorist organizations back in 2003.