DUSHANBE. June 3 (Interfax) - The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) cannot ignore potential threats emanating from Afghanistan, the Chairman of the upper chamber of the Tajik parliament, Rustam Emomali, told the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly in Almaty on Monday.
"We cannot ignore potential threats on the southern frontiers of our organization emanating from our neighbor, Afghanistan. The current situation in that country remains complicated due to a whole host of factors, and unfortunately there seems to be real progress in terms of its improvement," Emomali was quoted on social media as saying.
"Afghanistan has again turned into breeding ground for terrorism, with tens of terrorist and extremist groups bolstering their positions on its soil, and rising volumes of cultivation, production and illicit trafficking of Afghan drugs, including synthetic ones," he said.
There is also an increasing risk of Afghanistan's "destructive ideology of religious radicalism [spreading] to our countries," he said.
"Already Afghanistan is hosting more than a thousand religious madrasahs, most of which are in the Afghan provinces bordering the CSTO's southern frontier. These centers train suicide jihadists, among others," Emomali said.
A continuance of this situation in Afghanistan could have long-term negative effects for the CSTO region, he said.
"In the circumstances, we think it is time for the CSTO to adopt and implement the targeted inter-state program to secure the Tajik-Afghan border, which is currently at the stage of being signed," Emomali said.
As global challenges and threats are increasing, so is the urgency of close interaction in the political dimension and of broader and more efficient military, military-technical and military-economic cooperation within the CSTO, he said.