MOSCOW: Russia will allow NATO to transfer armoured vehicles through its territory to Afghanistan under an expanded new cooperation agreement, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.
“The simplified procedure has been expanded to include armoured vehicles with fortified anti-mine protection,” Lavrov said at a joint press appearance with his Afghan counterpart Zalmay Rasul. “This is an important addition that participants of the international security-promotion forces asked about in the past.”
Moscow and NATO struck a deal last weekend to boost the flow of Western military supply shipments through Russia to the front line in Afghanistan. But NATO officials did not disclose details of the new agreement. Moscow has previously allowed NATO to transfer non-combat equipment to Afghanistan, and Russian officials stressed that the new deal also only applied to vehicles that could be used for civilian purposes.
Two sides “are not talking about APCs (armoured personnel carriers) or armoured vehicles that can take part in combat activities,” Russia’s representative to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, told Moscow Echo radio. The agreement concerns “vehicles with fortified anti-mine protection for — first and foremost — moving civilian personnel,” Rogozin said.
It was not immediately clear if the transfers would take place by air or rail. But Rozogin stressed that Russia had no intention of ever letting the Alliance use its territory to transfer combat equipment.
