PARIS, Jan 24: The current US military operations in Afghanistan have allowed Moscow to re-establish its military influence in the country, a renowned Afghan politician said on Thursday.

Ex-deputy premier Samad Hamed also alleged that Russians now controlled parts of Afghanistan through the Northern Alliance.

“Afghanistan has been occupied by different forces, including the Americans and the Russians,” he said.

“Without our knowledge and before our people’s blood dried up, the Russians came back to Afghanistan,” the German-based analyst said in a telephone interview.

He also said that he did not rule out the possibility of a Moscow-Washington deal to allow Russians to re-expand their influence in Afghanistan in return for permitting the Americans to stay in other Central Asian countries.

“It is an economic-military game. The major winner will be the Russians,” he said.

“They (the Russians) not only came back to Kabul, but also brought under their influence Northern Alliance regular troops. They came back without even offering an apology,” he said.

Russia has not contributed soldiers to the international security force deployed in Afghanistan but has sent armed personnel to maintain the security of its political mission and humanitarian activities in the capital Kabul.

Hamed further alleged that the country’s current interim government was run by UN chief Kofi Annan’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi.

“The authority of the interim government is in fact in the hands of the United Nations Secretary General’s Special Envoy,” he said.

“It would be wrong to expect much from the interim administration,” he stated, adding that the United Nations would be accountable in future for whatever bad or good befalls the war-torn country.

The six-month administration is the product of a UN-sponsored inter-Afghan gathering last November in Germany. The conference could not speak for the Afghan people because the delegates were chosen by the United Nations, he said.

According to Hamed, who served in key posts during the rule of ex-king Mohammed Zahir Shah in the 1960s, the world bigger powers were interested in the economic resources of Central Asia.

“It is a fact that our region, particularly Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia, is economically and geopolitically important,” he said.

He said Russians still considered Central Asia, a region noted for its rich natural energy reserves, as a zone under their influence.

The presence of western forces in Afghanistan had two goals, he said — weeding out terrorist bases from Afghanistan and restoring security in the country.

“We hope that the first operations end soon,” he said, adding that he was always a firm supporter of US political involvement in Afghanistan. The country became a terrorist beehive only when the west, led by Washington, abondoned it following the Soviet troop pullout.

According to him, the past 23 years of non-stop strife has shown that Afghans were “steadfast people who tolerated every disaster but never gave up their national unity.

“The spirit of national unity in Afghanistan is so strong that nobody can talk of the country’s partition,” he said.

He added that the international community had only taken action against the Taliban once they threatened their interests no matter how despotic the puritanical regime had been at home.—AFP