TEHRAN, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- An Iranian diplomat said the United States is still planning to exacerbate instability and insecurity in Afghanistan two years after its military pullout, in an effort to make the Asian country a source of concern for its neighboring and regional states.
Iran's special representative for Afghanistan Hassan Kazemi-Qomi made the remarks in an interview with Iran's IRIB news agency that was published on Sunday.
The economic and security challenges in Afghanistan are, more than anything else, the consequences of the 20-year occupation by the United States and its NATO Allies, who have destroyed the country's economic infrastructure and security foundations, the Iranian envoy said at the end of the fifth meeting of the Moscow Format Consultations on Afghanistan that was held in the Russian city of Kazan on Friday.
Commenting on the meeting, which was attended by representatives from 13 countries including China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Türkiye, the Iranian envoy said the participants had explicitly blamed the U.S. occupation and its consequences for the current situation in Afghanistan.
He stressed that Afghanistan's neighbors had agreed that they should, in a collective move and through a regional initiative, change the situation in Afghanistan while cooperating with the authorities in Kabul. ■
