Deputy Foreign Minister for Asia and Oceania Affairs, Ebrahim Rahimpour, represented Iran in an 11-state Afghanistan peace conference hosted by Moscow on Friday, aimed at settling Afghanistan's drawn-out conflict and Taliban insurgency.
Rahimpour stressed a decisive fight against terrorism in Afghanistan as a 'regional necessity', and deemed the current security situation in Afghanistan ‘undesirable’.
“It is imperative for regional countries to send a decisive message to terrorists that they are resolutely committed to fighting terrorism in the region,” he said.
He also noted Iran’s hosting of about three million Afghan refugees for years, adding “Tehran is ready to extend cooperation to the Afghan government to establish peace, and settle the country’s various domestic and regional issues such as drug trafficking and security affairs.”
Friday’s meeting which came at the initiative of Moscow has grown from trilateral consultations between Russia, China, and Pakistan held in December of last year into talks involving the majority of the Afghan region’s powers including Russia, China, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. An invitation was also sent to the US but was rejected.
Participants in the conference underscored their support for a peaceful transition in Afghanistan, while calling for Kabul to be supported in moving in that direction. They also reiterated that the conflict in that country cannot be settled through military approaches and stressed the importance of dialogs between the conflicting sides for a sustainable peace.
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