MOSCOW, October 15. /TASS/. Moscow and its partners in Central Asia are taking every measure possible to counter threats posed by arms and drug trafficking from Afghanistan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
"Attempts continue to smuggle weapons and drugs from Afghanistan into Central Asia and onward to Russia. Russia and its partners in the region need to give an appropriate comprehensive response to these challenges, and this is what we are doing," he pointed out, addressing a conference on security issues in Central Asia and Afghanistan involving the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
"We have to try harder and harder as time goes on, and we are working on that together with all Central Asia nations, while also engaging our colleagues in Kabul," Lavrov specified.
According to the top diplomat, Russia believes that the government formed by the Taliban movement "is a reality that needs to be accepted," and that more and more countries are growing accustomed to this idea.
"At the political level, we focus our efforts on consolidating external support for the Kabul authorities and the areas of their activities that serve the interests of regional security. Russia fully shares the vision that Afghanistan should be an independent, united and peaceful country, free of war and drugs," the Russian foreign minister concluded.