ISLAMABAD - Counter-terrorism cooperation in Afghanistan will figure high at a crucial meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Russian Federation in Brussels on April 20, NATO sources said yesterday.
The meeting gained greater significance after Brussels froze military ties with Moscow over Ukraine crises last year with its added importance of NATO’s desire to engage Russia in counter terrorism cooperation over Afghanistan where the US-led NATO forces have failed to restore peace.
According to experts and security analysts, NATO has agreed to engage Russia on terrorist threats to Afghanistan after the NATO forces failed to win the 16-year Afghan war and restore peace in Afghanistan.
They believed that Taliban forces whose government was routed by the US-led forces in 2002 are still posing a serious threat to remaining US and NATO forces as well as the US-installed Unity government in Afghanistan. The US and NATO after spending billions of dollars to win the war had concluded the combat operations.
In this background, experts said, NATO is seeking to engage Russian Federation in a conflict Moscow had stayed away since the launch of US-led war in Afghanistan. Analysts also believed that there are quite little prospects of Russia’s jumping into Afghan conflict largely because of the fact Russia’s deep engagement in the Black Sea member countries to forestall security threats its faces from the traditional US rival.
Another factor the experts cited for NATO’s desire to forge cooperation with Russia in counter terrorism in Afghanistan is after Russia directly intervened in the Syria crises to target the non-state actors including Daesh and others challenging the government of President Assad.
According to them, Russian pre-emptive move in Syria was a big surprise to the United States and its allies, and it upset their future plans for the region.
They also believed that prevailing tensions between Russian and US and NATO member countries over Georgia, Ukraine, Syria and now Turkey which is also a NATO member would not attract Russia to offer its cooperation to the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan located in the immediate neighbourhood of Russia.
“Why would Russia drag itself in Afghanistan when it already engaged to stabilize its Euro-Asian region”, said a leading analyst of foreign policy, requesting not to be named.
He added Russia had a bitter US-led proxy war in Afghanistan that led to dismemberment of the Soviet Union and US-led unipolar international security system.