MOSCOW. Oct 18 (Interfax) - Moscow is working for the admission of Afghanistan to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) but that will take time, the Russian President's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Director of the Foreign Ministry's Second Asia Department, Zamir Kabulov, told the Izvestia newspaper.
"There is still some way to go before Kabul joins the organization as a full-fledged member. But we are doing all we can to make this happen. This can help Afghanistan," Kabulov said commenting on the October 11 meeting of the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group.
Moscow is satisfied with the meeting, which searched for ways of possible interaction, Kabulov said. "We have discussed contacts with Kabul in regard to the stabilization in Afghanistan, as well as economic cooperation," he said.
Russian diplomatic sources familiar with the progress of negotiations told the newspaper that the meeting addressed Afghanistan's future membership in the international organization and that the Afghan delegation asked to put the issue on the list of SCO priorities.
"Although Russia and China wish to see Afghanistan as a member of the organization, that will take some time. The SCO has recently admitted India and Pakistan, and everyone agrees that a certain stabilization period is necessary to blend the new members into the organization's activity. At the same time, everyone wants Afghanistan to be an SCO member. The United States is against, and it may put pressure on Afghanistan. In any case, Kabul will have time to prepare for accession," one of the sources said.
The parties agreed at the meeting to draw up a roadmap of further actions, the Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department of General Asian Affairs and the Russian President's Special Representative for the SCO, Bakhtiyer Khakimov, told Izvestia. The SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group will have its next meeting in China in early 2018, he said.
"An understanding that Afghan settlement is impossible without neighboring countries is extremely important. Dialogue will continue, and the initial groundwork has been laid for the action plan," Khakimov said.
The Director of the Afghan Foreign Ministry's Planning and Policy Department, Mohammad Ashraf Haidari, told Interfax earlier that an Afghan representative urged SCO member countries at the October 11 meeting of the Contact Group to support the full-fledged membership of his country in the regional organization.