Fearing Afghanistan instability, Russia mulls border troops
Source: Reuters
(Reuters) - Russia, predicting instability once NATO-led troops withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of next year, is considering deploying border guards on the Tajik-Afghan border, Moscow's envoy to Kabul told Reuters in an interview.
Moscow, still sore from its disastrous, decade-long war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, is increasingly concerned by what it describes as the combined threat of narcotics and terrorism reaching Russia through former Soviet Central Asian countries.
"We prefer to tackle this problem on the Afghan border to stop these threats," Andrey Avetisyan said late on Thursday in the Russian embassy in Kabul.
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"We used to have a serious presence on the Afghan-Tajik border and, at that time, the situation there was much better, so it would be in the interest of both Russia and Tajikistan and even Afghanistan if Russia is present there," he said.
Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/05/17/uk-afghanistan-russia-idUKBRE94G06D20130517
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