DATE=10/10/00

TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT

TITLE=RUSSIA / AFGHANISTAN

NUMBER=5-47138

BYLINE=SONJA PACE

DATELINE=MOSCOW

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

/// EDS: PUTIN EXPECTED TO CONCLUDE KAZAKHSTAN TALKS TUESDAY AND TO FLY TO BISHKEK, KYRGYSTAN, WEDNESDAY FOR A MEETING OF THE COLLECTIVE SECURITY COUNCIL OF THE C-I-S, A LOOSE GROUPING OF SOME OF THE FORMER SOVIET REPUBLICS ///

INTRO: Russian President Vladimir Putin is using his current visit to central Asia to lash out at Afghanistan's Taleban leadership. During a stop in Kazakhstan, he accused it of supporting terrorism and allowing a flourishing drug trade to finance it. The renewed fighting in Afghanistan is on the agenda as President Putin meets with central Asian leaders this week. V-O-A's Sonja Pace reports from Moscow about the Kremlin's growing concern that the war in Afghanistan may destabilize all of central Asia.

TEXT: It is not the first time President Putin has warned of the dangers of the Afghan war. He voiced the same concerns when he spoke recently to journalists in Moscow.

/// PUTIN ACT - IN RUSSIAN - ESTABLISH AND FADE ///

President Putin says if the conflict in Afghanistan is not settled soon, it risks destabilizing the whole region and that will affect Russia.

There is the immediate concern that the fighting in Afghanistan will send thousands of refugees fleeing into neighboring Tajikistan. And there is the broader concern shared by many in central Asia that the Taleban is training terrorists to export its brand of Islam.

Sergei Yastrzhembsky is one of Mr. Putin's senior aides. His job is to advise the president on such issues. In an interview with V-O-A, Mr. Yastrzhembsky said Afghanistan has become the new training ground for extremists and terrorists.

/// YASTRZHEMBSKY ACT 1 - IN RUSSIAN - FADE TO ENGLISH TRANSLATION ///

We believe there is an arc of instability starting from the Philippines, Indonesia, through Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, the North Caucuses, Chechnya, and also the Middle East. Afghanistan is the new nucleus of extremism. They support and harbor terrorists like Osama bin Laden. Drug trafficking is flourishing there. It creates a financial pillow used by terrorists to spread their expansion into neighboring states. These people have no national frontiers, no limits. They are the true mercenaries of Jihad, Holy War.

/// END ACT ///

Moscow has blamed much of the insurgency in Chechnya on Islamic extremists. In central Asia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have been shaken by attacks by militants who want to establish an Islamic state in the Ferghana Valley.

Political analyst Alexander Malashenko of the Carnegie Endowment in Moscow told V-O-A he agrees there is a threat to stability but does not feel it is coming only from the Taleban.

/// MALASHENKO ACT ///

I don't like to exaggerate the role of Afghanistan. The roots of Islamism in central Asia are central Asian. The population in central Asia, including Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, are disappointed with their leaders. They are disappointed with how the reforms are going. They begin to believe that they can resolve all their problems social, economic, and political problems on the path of creating an Islamic state.

/// END ACT ///

Mr. Malashenko says the rise of Islamic militancy in central Asia is really a fight against local elites.

But the Kremlin does not talk in those terms. Nonetheless, it is concerned enough about the phenomenon to have launched a diplomatic initiative to counter it. The subject was on the agenda when Mr. Putin met with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in New Delhi last week.

A week earlier, the Kremlin sent Mr. Yastrzhembsky to Islamabad where he raised some of the same issues with Pakistan's military leader, Pervez Musharraf -- in particular information on alleged terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.

/// YASTRZHEMBSKY ACT 2 - IN RUSSIAN - FADE TO ENGLISH TRANSLATION ///

In Pakistan, I passed to General Musharraf the addresses of the camps and a list of nationalities of the people being trained there. There are people from Chechnya, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and China. Recently, Russia handed over to Beijing two (ethnic) Uighers who were trained in Afghanistan and then captured in the Chechen Republic.

/// END ACT ///

Mr. Yastrzhembsky said he has received assurances from General Musharraf that Pakistan will use its influence to help shut down these camps.

The Taleban denies the existence of such camps and has called the Russian allegations "baseless" and designed to cover up Moscow's own interference in Afghan affairs, a reference to accusations that Russia supports the anti-Taleban opposition.

NEB/SP/GE/JWH