Tajikistan relayed to a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) how it is “very concerned about the concentration of different terrorist groups [in Afghanistan] next to our borders that we've never had before [and it] is increasing day by day”.

The sentiments were expressed by Amirbeg Begnazarov, a representative of Tajikistan who attended the June 21 event, jointly hosted by the SCO and the United Nations.

In comments reported by VoA, he added: “According to our information, terrorist groups such as al-Qaida, Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, TTP, Jamaat Ansarullah are currently present in Afghanistan and pose serious threats to neighbouring countries.”

Russia's defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, lately talked about how the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan has bolstered terrorist organisations operating in the country. That is seen by many observers to be the case even though terrorist groups like al-Qaida are foes of the Taliban. Moscow, meanwhile, remains suspicious that the US is attempting to sow instability to its south. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov recently claimed the US was looking at opening another front against Russia in Central Asia or the South Caucasus. Washington denies making any such moves.

For its part, China continues to try to constructively engage with the Islamist Taliban’s regime.

“Afghanistan is at a critical phase of transitioning from chaos to order,” Zhang Jun, the Chinese permanent representative at the UN, told a Security Council meeting on Afghanistan on June 21.

Zhang said that the international community should help Afghanistan achieve stability and economic prosperity by working with the Taliban, who de facto form the country’s government, even though their administration has not won recognition from neighbours or any other countries.

The SCO is an intergovernmental alliance for security and economic cooperation. Its members are China, Russia, India, Pakistan and four of the five central Asian nations. The Central Asian non-member is Turkmenistan. Iran hopes to win full membership of the SCO this year.