Russian Parliamentarian And Tajik Counterpart Discuss Tajik Afghan Situation

Vice-speaker of the State Duma (the lower house of parliament) Vladimir Lukin and Speaker of the Tajik parliament's lower house Saidullo Khairullayev discussed the situation in the Tajik region and Afghanistan on Thursday. According to Lukin, to solve the Afghan issue it is necessary to liquidate terrorists and those who are their accomplices, namely the Taliban regime. "The Taliban regime is criminal, and it, I think, will be overthrown by the multinational Afghan people", Lukin said. He also pointed out that the Afghan people will hardly allow the Taliban to be included in the new government. The vice-speaker also stressed that this does not mean at all that the Pashtuns, the state-forming nation of Afghanistan, will not have its members in the government. The Pashtuns and the Taliban are not one and the same thing, Lukin pointed out.