The planned 2014 withdrawal of international coalition forces from Afghanistan will only aggravate the situation in the country and the region, the head of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) said on Thursday.
“According to our estimates, the forthcoming withdrawal of the International Security Assistance Force will only make the situation worse: radical regional and nationalists will intensify their activities in [CSTO] member states,” said Nikolai Bordyuzha, the secretary-general of the post-Soviet security alliance.
Out of seven CSTO members, two - Uzbekistan and Tajikistan - border Afghanistan.
"The Afghan factor is still responsible for a wide range of [security] threats in the Eurasian region. This country is where drug trafficking routes originate, from its territory armed groups and illegal migrants cross into neighboring states and fundamentalist ideology is being exported,” the secretary-general said.
In December 2011 the organization approved a list of measures to counteract security challenges and threats from the territory of Afghanistan, which include forming an anti-drug and financial security zones around the impoverished Central Asian state.
