ALMATY, June 9: Russia is ready to work with NATO in stabilizing Afghanistan and will give an added boost to regional security with a new rapid reaction force currently being formed in nearby Kyrghyzstan, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Monday.

“We’re ready to cooperate with NATO, which takes over peacekeeping in Afghanistan this autumn.

“Multiple threats ... emanate from Afghanistan not only against the Commmonwealth of Independent States (CIS) but also Europe,” Mr Ivanov told Interfax after meeting defence ministers of the 12-member CIS bloc of ex-Soviet republics in the central Kazakhstan town of Shuchinsk.

An airborne rapid reaction force being established in Kazakhstan’s neighbour Kyrghyzstan using Russian Su-25 ground attack jets and Su-27 fighters “will be fully ready for its tasks by the end of this year”, Mr Ivanov said.

Last month he had said Russian help to NATO could include providing intelligence and back-up services and search and rescue operations in the north of Afghanistan, close to the Afghan-Tajik border.

On Monday he again ruled out stationing troops on the ground in Afghanistan, saying that the question “is not even being contemplated in theory”.

Some 11,000 Russian troops are helping to guard the border in the ex-Soviet republic of Tajikistan, which has a long common border with Afghanistan.

The NATO alliance is to take command of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan on Aug 11, in the 19-member alliance’s first operation outside its traditional European field of activities.

It remains unclear how many Russian jets will be stationed at the rapid reaction force’s base at Kant, Kyrghyzstan, but initially 200 service personnel will staff the force, rising later to 500, defence officials have said —AFP