Moscow. (Pyotr Goncharov for RIA Novosti) - Judging by everything, Russia's permission to transport NATO and U.S. military cargoes via its air space has been only the beginning of the Kremlin's new policy in Afghanistan.
This has been followed by the summit of the Dushanbe Four - the presidents of Russia, Tajikistan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Its importance should by no means be reduced to its official objective - to discuss electricity supplies from Tajikistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
First and foremost, the summit demonstrates that on resolving the Afghan issue Moscow has ultimately abandoned its previous position of "let's wait and see how you do without us". This is a correct decision since it makes more sense to join the others and make money in the process.
Furthermore, Moscow has supported Dushanbe's position on a new format for the discussion of the Afghan issue. It has done this appropriately - without disputing the authorship of the initiative or trying to become a co-author.
President Dmitry Medvedev has come to appreciate the indisputable merits of the Dushanbe Four. The proposed format allows all of its participants to partake of the enormous cash flow earmarked by the wealthy part of the international community - G8, G20 and so on - for resolving the region's economic and social problems.
Incidentally, the projects carried out jointly by Russia and Tajikistan, for instance CASA-1000 to build a regional power transmission line worth $680 million, is a good example of international crossborder projects. This line will make it possible to transfer electricity surplus to Kabul and north-western regions of Pakistan in summer time.
But this is not the main point. Principally, the format of the Four will allow them to discuss all major regional problems - from developing economic cooperation to countering drug trafficking and terrorism, which are a headache for both Russia and Tajikistan. Afghanistan could benefit from contacts and cooperation with its eastern neighbor Pakistan. Kabul has been continuously raising the problem of the open border, which allows the Taliban to find refuge on the Pakistani side. This problem can also be resolved in the format of the Four.
It goes without saying that Tajikistan is interested in creating the Dushanbe Four format, all the more so since Tehran, Dushanbe's traditional rival in Afghanistan, has already held two trilateral summits - Iran-Afghanistan-Pakistan and Iran-Afghanistan-Tajikistan.
Tehran's intentions are very clear. It wants to become the regional leader in resolving the Afghan issue, and for this reason the appearance of the Dushanbe Four has been good for Tajikistan.
As for Pakistan, Islamabad has long expressed its readiness for closer cooperation with Moscow on resolving regional issues, particularly issues like Afghanistan. The only sensitive question that may come up is Islamabad's request to Moscow to supply the Pakistani army with helicopters, aircraft, and other hardware. Needless to say, such a request will be justified by the need to modernize the army and to counter new regional challenges.
Finally, at the all-Afghan forum of the Afghan diaspora, Afghan MPs, politicians and experts have made a big step forward toward Russia. They stopped attributing the social crisis in Afghanistan to foreign factors, which traditionally included the Soviet involvement. In other words, they stopped linking all Afghan troubles to foreign influence and started looking for the main reasons behind them on the domestic scene.
It was noted at the forum that the war in Afghanistan is putting regional cooperation to the top of the list of priorities, and that it is time Russia played a befitting role in this respect.
Moscow has made an adequate response by supporting Dushanbe's initiative.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
