Iran’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan has said that the neighboring countries of Afghanistan should enhance cooperation in order to help the country resolve its issues without relying on outside powers.

Iran PressEurope: During the 5th meeting of the Moscow Format on Afghanistan held in Russia’s Kazan on Friday, the Iranian president's special envoy for Afghanistan slammed Washington’s 20-year occupation of the country. 

Hassan Kazemi Qomi, who also serves as Iran’s ambassador to Kabul, said years of U.S. interference in Afghanistan’s internal affairs have laid waste to various aspects of the Afghan people’s lives. He asked Afghanistan’s neighboring countries to get united in the face of foreign threats meaning to take advantage of Afghanistan’s distress. 

The Iranian envoy criticized the United States’ policies towards Afghanistan in the past decades, calling them wrong.

He said that the 20-year-long occupation of Afghanistan by the US and its allies and the creation of what he called “a foreigners’ front” are not in line with Afghanistan’s national interests.

That front, Kazemi Qomi added, is seeking its own interests and is trying to impose its values on other nations.

On the opposite side of “the foreigners’ front”, there is Afghanistan’s “neighbors’ front”, he noted, expressing hope that the country’s caretaker government pursues the plan for implementing the neighborly policy through consultations with the neighboring nations and based on protecting Afghanistan’s interests. 219