Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Turkmenistan Alexander Blokhin drew attention to the similarity of Moscow's and Ashgabat's assessments of the situation in Afghanistan, speaking on Monday at a briefing on the results of the 15th summit of the heads of state of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), which was held in Ashgabat last Sunday under the chairmanship Turkmenistan.

“I would like to note the closeness of Russia's approaches to the assessments of the situation in Afghanistan expressed by the President of Turkmenistan”.

The ambassador also noted: «Russia believes that the United States and its coalition allies will show responsibility and make a major financial contribution to this cause».

At the recently held 15th summit of ECO heads of state, President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov called on the member states of the Organization «to provide urgent and effective humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people in this difficult period.»

At the same time, the Turkmen leader noted the importance of Afghanistan's participation in the implementation of large regional infrastructure projects – the construction of power lines along the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan route, railways from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, as well as the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline.

As Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedova emphasized, in this way Afghanistan becomes an active subject, a valuable and integral participant in economic partnership.

“We see this as a strategic perspective for Afghanistan, its role in regional and global processes, the most important condition for achieving peace, harmony and development on Afghan soil,” the head of Turkmenistan added.