Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a news conference on Friday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel that “the political reality” is that the Taliban controls most of Afghanistan, and outside forces must not impose their views on the country.
“The Taliban movement today controls almost the entire territory of the country, including the capital. This is the political reality, and one must proceed from these realities, preventing the collapse of the Afghan state,” Putin said.
“It is necessary to stop the irresponsible policy of imposing someone else’s values from the outside, the desire to build democracy from outside according to other people’s patterns, without taking into account any historical, cultural or religious peculiarities. Completely ignoring the traditions by which other peoples live,” he continued.
“We know Afghanistan well, we know how this country is organized and how counterproductive it is to try to impose unusual forms of government and social life on it. Any such social and political experiments have not yet been successful and only lead to the destruction of the state, the degradation of their political and social systems,” Putin said.
“At the same time, we see that the Taliban have already announced the end of hostilities, have begun to establish public safety for local residents, foreign diplomatic missions,” he added.
Putin also said it is important to prevent the “penetration of terrorists” “disguised as refugees” into countries near Afghanistan.
“In our opinion, it is especially important now to prevent the penetration of terrorists of all stripes into the territory of states adjacent to Afghanistan, including disguised as refugees,” Putin said.
How the Taliban’s takeover has unfolded so far: The Taliban have moved swiftly to crush early opposition to their rule across Afghanistan, clashing with protesters and forcing an entire city to stay inside, as a frantic rush to escape the country intensifies at Kabul’s international airport.
A curfew was to be imposed “for an indefinite time” over the entire southeastern Afghan city of Khost on Thursday, multiple Taliban sources told CNN on Wednesday, after videos emerged on social media purporting to show hundreds of people there demonstrating against the militant group’s seizure of power.
The rapid shutdown of opposition undermines the Taliban’s repeated attempts to convince international media and observers that their rule will be more restrained and inclusive than it was two decades ago.
CNN’s Rob Picheta, Saleem Mehsud and Tim Lister contributed reporting to this post.