SEVILLE, Spain, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- Russia's defense minister said Friday the Kremlin was ready to work with the United States to stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan.
"We will of course never send our servicemen there, but everything else is open for discussion. This includes our efforts to alleviate Afghanistan's debt to Russia," Sergei Ivanov told journalists on Friday after an informal Russia-NATO Council meeting in the southern Spanish city of Seville, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Ivanov said the Afghan government still owed the Kremlin $10 billion. He said the Russian government was also willing would to join in rebuilding Afghanistan and in supporting its economic development program.
These initiatives were essential to restoring peace in the long-troubled Central Asian nation, Ivanov said. "The situation in Afghanistan cannot be settled through military means alone," he said according to the RIA Novosti report.
"Russia, along with the (anti-terrorism) alliance, is seriously concerned by the continuously deteriorating military and political situation in Afghanistan," Ivanov said. He said the main reason for the failure to implement successful international economic aid and reconstruction programs in Afghanistan and surrounding countries was the "inertia of old approaches," the Russian news agency said.
