Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova has said that Moscow supports the intra-Afghan talks held on 7 and 8 July in Doha.

Speaking at a press conference she added:” Russia supports the results of the Second Inter-Afghan Dialogue Conference held in Doha on July 7-8. It was basically a continuation of the conversation between representatives of a broad range of Afghanistan’s socio-political forces, including the armed opposition, which was started last February, and is aimed at launching a peace process in that country as soon as possible. We are satisfied that the participants at the Doha meeting adopted a final statement reflecting their intention to steadily move towards an inter-Afghanistan peace.”

Elsewhere, she went on to say that “we have emphasized more than once that the inter-Afghanistan dialogue reflects the principle of an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process that was broadly approved by the international community. In Afghanistan’s current reality, such meetings are the only viable channel of communication not only for the confronting sides of the conflict but also for the key political forces of the IRA, without which it will hardly be possible to achieve durable peace. We hope communication will lay the foundation for a future peace agreement and will more clearly outline the contours of the post-conflict arrangement in Afghanistan.”

“We can only rejoice that the inter-Afghanistan negotiating format that was initiated by the Afghan diaspora of Russia, a number of other CIS countries and some Asian and European states, has been continued and received support from the overwhelming majority of the international community,” she later added.

Arezo news website – Salimi