KABUL, 06 July 2021, (TON):  The Council of the Parliamentary Assembly said in a statement that the speaker of Afghanistan's parliament, Mir Rahman Rahmani, this week has participated at the Council of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Organizations on Afghanistan over the security situation in northern provinces.

The statement said “due to the deteriorating security situation near the southern borders of the Republic of Tajikistan, a CSTO Members State, the Council of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, express its concerns regarding the high level of combat activity in Afghanistan, particularly in its northern provinces, amid the withdrawal of foreign military presence.”

It also called on the Afghan government and the Taliban “to cease violence to ensure favorable conditions for advancing the peace processes and establishing Afghanistan as an independent and neutral state.”

The council strongly condemned “terrorist attacks in Afghanistan against civilians and stresses that other international terrorist groups constitute a key instability component in Afghanistan.”

It also expressed concerns regarding “the extremely high level of drug production in Afghanistan, being a major source of income for terrorist groups in Afghanistan, and calls on the authorities of Afghanistan, including the Afghan National Assembly, to increase their efforts to combat this scourge.”

The council called on the international community, including national parliaments and international parliamentary organizations, to increase humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan to prevent Afghan refugees' flow into neighboring countries.