Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, on Tuesday rejected U.S. accusations that Russia could be supplying weapons to the Taliban.
U.S. officials have suspected in recent weeks that Russia is providing machine guns and other small arms to the Taliban, with such weaponry used to fight U.S.-aligned forces in Afghanistan.
Lavrov dismissed such allegations as “based on nothing’’ and suggested the U.S. was trying to divert attention away from its efforts to overthrow Syria’s ruling regime, for which Russia is the main military backer.
“I am sure that those in the U.S. who make money by providing intelligence to their leadership know very well that these allegations are false,” Lavrov said in comments carried by Russian state news agency TASS.
Lavrov also demanded that the Taliban took part in the process for achieving a national peace agreement in Afghanistan.
In December, Russia and China condemned what they viewed as Afghanistan’s deteriorating security situation, especially given the rise of the terrorist group Islamic State in the Central Asian country, which has been ravaged by decades of war.
A fundamentalist Muslim organisation, the Taliban controlled most of Afghanistan before the U.S.-led invasion in the early 2000s.
It has been a formidable force opposing Islamic State.
The Taliban said in December that it welcomed an initiative by UN Security Council members – Russia and China to consider taking some of its adherents off a UN terrorism blacklist as part of peace efforts in Afghanistan.(dpa/NAN)