Envoy: Russia to deliver aid, foodstuff to Afghanistan this month

Russia will start special flights to Afghanistan in November to deliver a large quantity of humanitarian aid and repatriate Russian nationals, Russia’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Dmitry Zhirnov said in an interview with the Rossiya-1 TV on Sunday.

This is the first time that all Central Asian countries and not just Afghanistan’s immediate land neighbours are attending a meeting in this format.

“We are preparing special flights to Afghanistan to deliver large humanitarian aid, foodstuffs. On these special flights in November, we will also repatriate Afghan nationals with Russian citizenship,” the envoy said.

“The flights that will follow will deliver to Russia Afghan students who enrolled at our universities on special quotas and as part of onsite training. They simply have no money to buy tickets. But the educational process must go on and the Taliban themselves support this,” Zhirnov said.

Participants of the Moscow format meeting on Afghanistan held on October 20 called for providing urgent humanitarian and economic aid to the country. They also proposed launching a collective initiative to convene a representative international donor conference on Afghanistan under the UN aegis as soon as possible.

In a related development, Russia, Iran, and most of the central Asian countries confirmed that they would take part in regional security talks on Afghanistanto be hosted by India on November 10, official sources said on Friday.

India is hosting this dialogue to discuss the overall security situation in Afghanistan after the Taliban seized power in Kabul in August this year. The meeting will be held at the level of national security advisers of all participant countries. India’s NSA Ajit Doval will chair the dialogue.

Two earlier meetings in this format have been held in Iran in September 2018 and December 2019, the sources said adding the third meeting in India could not be held earlier due to the pandemic.