Afghanistan: Russia heads back to help Nato
The Russian military may return to Afghanistan to aid Nato forces in the fight against the Taliban, 21 years after it was forced to retreat from a bloody conflict with the US-backed mujahedin.
A range of possible plans being drawn up by Nato may see Russia lending more than 20 helicopters to the Afghan army, the training of Afghan pilots, counter-narcotics assistance and enabling Nato convoys to cross Russian territory.
Proposals could also include collaboration on a missile defence system.
The news comes ahead of the attendance of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the Nato annual summit in Lisbon next month. Nato’s top diplomat has reportedly said the alliance believed it was close to a new start in ties with Russia.
Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Mr Medvedev’s attendance on 20 November would boost relations strained by Moscow’s 2008 invasion of Georgia.
Alliance
“The summit will represent a new start in the relationship between Nato and Russia,” Mr Rasmussen said.
Victory is impossible in Afghanistan. Mikhail Gorbachev
“Last December, when I visited Moscow, I suggested that Russia provide helicopters for the Afghan army. Since then Russia has reflected on that and there are now bilateral talks between Russia and the United States. I would not exclude that we will facilitate that process within the Nato-Russia council.”
He added: “It will be a very substantive Nato-Russia summit and definitely the most important event for cooperation since the Rome summit of 2002 when we established the Nato-Russia council.”
Nato is exploring whether Russia would allow forces to ship more goods, including “lethal” cargo such as weapons, across its territory to Afghanistan. Moscow already allows a limited number of supplies to use its roads.
Defence shield
Mr Rasmussen said one of the central issues at the summit would be whether Nato and Russia could begin cooperating on the creation of a missile defence shield.
Western countries have pressed for a shield as protection from states like Iran, but early plans by Washington were rejected by Russia as a threat to its own nuclear arsenal.
Mr Rasmussen said he believed Moscow’s objections had softened and that the Nato-wide missile defence system could one day link up to Russian radars to give all participating countries better protection.
Soviet tanks and armoured vehicles fill a junkyard in Kabul.
Soviet invasion
The possibility of Russian forces once again entering Afghanistan was greeted with a mixed response in the Afghan capital Kabul.
More than a million civilians lost their lives in the Soviet invasion more than two decades ago.
The Nato secretary-general appeared unconcerned about the potential impact, noting that Rusian-made helicopters are already in use in Afghanistan.
Gorbachev: Afghan win ‘impossible’
Mikhail Gorbachev, who oversaw the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, has said he believes a military win in Afghanistan would never be possible.
“Victory is impossible in Afghanistan,” he told the BBC.
“Obama is right to pull the troops out, no matter how difficult it will be.”
Mr Gorbachev said that during the Soviet withdrawal the US had supported peace negotiations while helping to training militants at the same time. “The same [militants] who are today terrorising Afghanistan and more and more of Pakistan,” he said.
“It will be more difficult for America to get out of this situation, but what is the alternative? Another Vietnam? Sending in half a million troops? That wouldn’t work.”