Security personnel and residents walk at the site of a auto bomb blast that targeted the CARE International compound at Share Naw in Kabul.
With concerns over Russia's growing role in Afghanistan, McMaster's visit nearly coincides with the 12-nation meeting on Afghanistan being hosted by Moscow on April 14.
A new round of worldwide talks, during the global Afghanistan Peace Conference being hosted in Russian Federation, is set to start on Friday featuring a broader scope of regional players than before.
The Afghan government claimed it has no evidence that the Russian military met with the Taliban in Uruzgan. The Russian Foreign Ministry later ruled out the notion.
The US official also urged these nations to "make it very clear that the only way to end that conflict definitively is through peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government".
Russia, which also sees Afghanistan as part of its sphere of influence in Central Asia, has suggested that the Taliban are an effective bulwark the rise of the Islamic State. Pakistan, he explained, first produced jihadists for this war but later had to fight against those very jihadists during the war on terror, suffering huge losses. Seven, by positively engaging Taliban and visibly addressing their genuine concerns, the major stakeholders are developing greater mutual confidence and seriousness towards a lasting settlement.
He said Russian Federation wanted to develop relations with "all" forces in Afghanistan based on three principles: the recognition of Afghanistan's constitution, disarmament, and reaching full national accord.
"We are anxious that Afghanistan will become another Syria, with world powers confronting each other here", Azami, the senator from Farah, said. India and Afghanistan will find themselves in a lonely corner, and the main participants, China, Iran, Pakistan and Russian Federation, are openly looking for a "peace deal" in Afghanistan, which would accommodate Taliban in some form.
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In fact, it is reproached for hedging its bets based on the surmise that the United States would ultimately leave Afghanistan - as it did after winning its first proxy war there - while Afghan Taliban were an enduring reality and hence had to be treated differently from the Pakistani Taliban the war produced.
The US, however, turned down the invitation and refused to attend the conference.
Anna Borshchevskaya of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said reports of Moscow supporting the Taliban were not new.
He added that Washington can not afford to stay away from the process for long as its strategy to date has failed to bring peace to Afghanistan.
"It was unclear to us what the objective was".
The objective "seemed to be a unilateral Russian attempt to assert influence in the region", acting U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on the eve of the talks.
The participants also agreed to continue consultations in the Moscow format.
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