Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow is working on an updated concept for security in the Persian Gulf region, as he warned building up of ISIL terrorists in northern Afghanistan following NATO withdrawal from the Asian country.

Speaking to reporters following talks with Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani in Moscow on Friday, Lavrov said Russia will soon present its updated concept of the ‘Security Concept for the Persian Gulf Region’, which was first unveiled in mid-2019.

“Our friends are expressing interest in our old initiative on the concept for collective security in the Gulf zone. Right now, taking account of recent events, we are working on an updated version of the concept. We will be ready to share it with interested parties in the very near future,” Lavrov was quoted as saying by Sputnik news agency.

The concept proceeds from the inadmissibility of large-scaled armed confrontation in the strategic region, and calls for collective work to establish a consensus and compromise-based solutions to reduce tensions.

Taking about Afghanistan, the top Russian diplomat warned that ISIL Takfiri group (also known as Daesh) was actively gaining territory in the Asian country amid the withdrawal and what he described as the “irresponsible” stance taken by officials in Kabul.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Lavrov said that in his estimation, the dangers posed by Daesh have not seriously increased in Iraq and Syria, and reiterated that Russia actively supports both countries’ efforts to liquidate the terrorists.

“We also believe that those countries who declared the ‘fight against terrorism’ to be the reason for their continued illegal presence on Syrian territory -recently, as I understand it, the United States carried out a meeting of the anti-Daesh coalition, must first and foremost engage in the elimination of this threat, and not in the occupation of a major portion of Syrian territory, not to illegally exploit its natural resources,” Lavrov stressed.

Source: Agencies