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Moscow’s Afghanistan format ends with no statement as Overchuk reports trade up 2.5 times

The eighth round of the Moscow format consultations on Afghanistan ended on Monday without a final statement because the Afghan and Pakistani delegations could not agree a text, Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday, with the special envoys of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan at the table. Deputy prime minister Alexei Overchuk told foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi the same morning that trade had grown 2.5 times in seven months.

By CAW Staff6 October 2026
A stack of ten dark blue folders, the top one open on a blank page, with a pen lying beside it.

The participants could not adopt a final statement, and that was not a pleasant event but no tragedy, since there were grounds to foresee it given the serious confrontation between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Lavrov told journalists, by Interfax. His main conclusion, he said, is that all interference by countries from outside the region in this geopolitical space must stop. The ten envoys left with no paper, and Turkmenistan’s name is on no list.

Monday’s round gathered the special representatives of Afghanistan, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, with Belarus and Egypt as guests, by Interfax’s list. Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s special representative, said the Afghan and Pakistani colleagues did not see eye to eye on the draft, and that the format can work without the statement, by Kabul Now’s account of 5 October.

The ten envoys left with no paper, and Turkmenistan’s name is on no list.

The Russian government’s readout of Overchuk’s meeting with Muttaqi at 09:30 on Tuesday says trade between Russia and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan grew 2.5 times in the first seven months of 2026 against the same period of 2025, with no sum, and that the two discussed trade, energy, investment and transport links in the context of the North-South corridor, with the dialogue to continue at government level. Muttaqi told Security Council secretary Sergei Shoigu on the same day that political relations were developing very well, by Interfax.

Muttaqi told the Monday meeting that Afghanistan wants to be a hub between Central and South Asia and named TAPI, TAP, CASA-1000 and the Trans-Afghan railway as the projects it counts on, by Tolo News, with real GDP growth of 1.5% in the 1404 fiscal year and private investment of 200.9 billion afghanis. Kazakhstan’s trade with Afghanistan reached $581.1 million, Kazinform reported on Tuesday evening, without the period in its headline.

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