MOSCOW, Nov 16 Moscow format meeting on Afghanistan at the level of special representatives opened in Moscow, the correspondent reports.
The Taliban do not participate in the work of the current meeting.
The «Moscow format» on Afghanistan was created in April 2017. It brings together 11 countries interested in the Afghan settlement. These are Russia, Afghanistan, China, Pakistan, Iran, India, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey were invited to this meeting as guests.
br>Participants of the meeting, as Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said earlier, will discuss the military-political, socio-economic and humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, and will also pay attention to efforts to strengthen regional security and stability and promote inter-Afghan national reconciliation.
br>A joint statement is expected to be adopted as a result of the meeting.
The previous round of consultations took place in October 2021 — a few months after the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, then they participated in the consultations.
This since, as a source in Kabul reported, the Taliban delegation* would not come to the conference, no invitations were received from the Russian Federation.
Nevertheless, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that then the Russian Federation maintains regular contacts with representatives of the Taliban, they will be privy to what the participants in the meeting of the «Moscow format» will be doing — Moscow will inform the political forces of Afghanistan in detail about the decisions of the meeting.
* The Taliban movement is under UN sanctions for terrorist activities .