The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Emirate today (Wednesday) in a statement praised Russia's stance on engaging with the interim government.
The ministry said that Kabul has always sought to strengthen relations with Moscow.
Part of the statement reads: "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomes the remarks of the leadership, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and other Russian officials expressing political will to expand relations with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses to Russia its serious political determination to further expand and strengthen positive relations with the aim of securing the interests of the people of both countries based on mutual respect and shared interests."
Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesperson for the Islamic Emirate, told TOLOnews: "The recent remarks of Russian officials have been positive and indicate that they want to keep the door open for engagement with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The Islamic Emirate has also established good diplomatic relations with that country."
Yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a press conference in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, called Russia's engagement with the interim government of Afghanistan important and added that Moscow's relations with the interim government are significant and necessary.
Vladimir Putin told reporters: "There are problems in Afghanistan, these problems are clear and known to everyone; but the question is how to establish relations with the current officials? We need to build it in a way -- these are people who govern their country and territory, they are now in power, we must move forward based on realities and build our relations on that basis."
Recently, Zamir Kabulov, Russia's special representative for Afghanistan, and Sergey Lavrov, the country's Foreign Minister, spoke about removing the Islamic Emirate from Russia's list of terrorist organizations.
However, on the other hand, the spokesperson for the White House National Security Council reacted to Russia's decision to remove the names of Islamic Emirate officials from the list of terrorist groups, saying that this decision will have negative consequences for other countries.
John Kirby said: "The Taliban have not fulfilled any of their commitments, the way they treat people, Afghan girls and women, and their management of the economy. We are not in a position to recognize the Taliban as the official government of Afghanistan. If Russia does this, we believe it will have bad consequences for others."
In a joint statement published following the Russian president's visit to Uzbekistan, establishing peace and stability in Afghanistan was mentioned as a priority for Moscow and Tashkent.