MOSCOW (TASS): The chief of Russia’s Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, has called upon all CIS member states to adhere to a viewpoint the deployment of US and NATO facilities in Asia would be impermissible.
“I believe that it is essential to adhere to the unanimous point of view, achieved at an urgent meeting of the CSTO Collective Security Council on August 23 the deployment of US and NATO military facilities in Central Asia as well as Afghan personnel that had worked for them would be impermissible. I am calling upon all CIS countries to stay committed to this point of view further on,” Patrushev said at the 17th conference of chiefs of security and intelligence services from the CIS member states.
He described as a threat to regional stability the upsurge in the number of refugees from Afghanistan in the wake of the latest developments.
“The scale of this problem may exceed the effects of all migration crises triggered by the West’s irresponsible actions in Libya, Syria and Iraq,” Patrushev said. He stressed that Iran and Pakistan had already accommodated about three million Afghans and more than four million refugees were in Turkey.
“The United States has been trying to persuade a number of countries to accommodate the Afghans that had cooperated with it. I would like to stress the related threat of terrorist elements penetrating into our countries,” Patrushev said.
He believes that the CIS special services and law enforcement agencies should go ahead with tight cooperation on migration-related issues to devise common approaches to addressing the refugee problem. Patrushev voiced the certainty that this would contribute to maintaining peace, security and stability in the CIS territory.
The joint work of CIS special services is important to fend off color revolution scenarios, Secretary of Russia’s Security Council said.
In 2022, the United States is set to boost its spending “on assistance to so-called democratization and the fight against authoritarianism to $3 billion,” Russia’s security chief said.
“In this situation, it is important to carry out joint work for coordinating special services and law-enforcement agencies to counter the scenarios of color revolutions and for establishing a dialogue in the sphere of regulating the activity of non-government organizations that receive financing from abroad and also for tracking other unfriendly steps by Western countries and their disruptive activity on the territory of the CIS states,” Patrushev pointed out.
“The CIS space remains the focus of the Americans’ attention,” the Russian security chief stressed.
The US is implementing a course towards stimulating Russia’s economic and cultural disengagement with Ukraine and Georgia.
