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Russian President, Top Aides Discuss Central Asia Situation
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday called together some top national defense and security aides in the Black Sea resort of Sochi to review the developments in Central Asia in the wake of September 11 terror attacks in U.S., said Putin's press secretary Alexei Gromov.
Among those attending the meeting were chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Anatoly Kvashnin and deputy director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Viktor Komogorov and other officials.
They reported to Putin the results of their work in the Central Asian region and coordination of actions with partners of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Gromov said.
Following Putin's meeting with ministers on Saturday evening, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told reporters that Kvashnin held a meeting in Dushanbe on the same day with representatives of Afghanistan's anti-Taliban Northern Alliance headed by commander of armed forces of the anti-Taliban coalition Mohammad Fahim.
This coalition has been opposing the Taliban regime over the past few years, Ivanov said. It is evidently an open secret that Russia, as well as other states, has been rendering for years moral and other assistance to the Northern Alliance, the minister said.
Also on Sunday, Putin held telephone consultations with the leaders of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan to coordinate their stands on U.S. military building up around Afghanistan, the Kremlin press service said.
The Russian and Central Asian leaders also discussed the coordination of actions in dealing with the current situation in the region.
This is the second time in one week that Putin phoned his CIS partners on Central Asian situation.
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