Russia’s Central Asian allies say they won’t host fleeing Afghan refugees

Fast News

Collective Security Treaty Organisation or CSTO, which includes three Central Asian nations with borders with Afghanistan, says its members have no plans to host Afghan refugees amid political and security crisis.

A view of the meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, on September 16, 2021. (Reuters)

Members of a Russia-led security
bloc that includes some countries adjacent or close to
Afghanistan have no plans to host Afghan refugees amid the
political and security crisis in the country, bloc member
Kazakhstan has said.

The Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) includes
three Central Asian nations –– Tajikistan, which has a lengthy
border with Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan –– as well as
several more remote former Soviet republics.

At a heads-of-state meeting of the bloc in Tajikistan on
Thursday, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev “supported the
joint CSTO position that the placement of Afghan refugees or
foreign military bases on our countries’ territories is
unacceptable”, his office said in a statement.

Two more Central Asian nations, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan,
border Afghanistan but are not CSTO members. 

However, Uzbekistan
has also said it would only allow short-term transit of refugees
by planes to third countries.

READ MORE:
Russia-led CSTO bloc ‘to mobilise’ if Taliban push mars Afghan-Tajik border

Source: Reuters

Russia’s Central Asian allies say they won’t host fleeing Afghan refugees
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