No end in sight to war in Afghanistan, attempts being made to find solution without Russia - Uzbek president
MOSCOW. April 26 (Interfax) - Uzbek President Islam Karimov has expressed concern about the ongoing war in Afghanistan and the attempts to resolve the Afghan conflict without Russia.
"Afghanistan is still a territory of ongoing confrontations, I would call it a creeping war, to which there is no end in sight [...]. The war in Afghanistan never ends, there is no light in the end of the tunnel so far; I should also openly say that attempts to resolve the Afghan problem without Russia are being made," he said at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"We in Uzbekistan, Central Asia can feel that everything happening in the world bears direct relation to Central Asia and everything that we see on TV and read in printed media and online is directly related to the events in our neighborhood," he said.
In his opinion, Russia's interest in Central Asia is in demand.
"No one has forgotten; everyone knows that Central Asia has had relations with Russia for centuries, these are millennia-long relations, and we can definitely feel Russia's interest in Central Asia and we agree with it; by the way, we not just agree, we also think there is a need for it," Karimov said.