Xinhua
06/13/2003
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BRUSSELS - Russia said Friday it would be willing to join peacekeeping force in Afghanistan beyond Kabul to restore the rule of law and root out the country's booming opium poppy cultivation.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Russia would support the 5,200-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) with exchanges of information, logistics and both overflight and transit rights for troops.

Ivanov, who was here to attend a NATO defense ministers meeting, said Moscow would also be ready to support the force if its mandate was extended beyond the capital, Kabul.

"If ISAF forces believe that it is advisable to go beyond the confines of Kabul all well and good," he told a news conference at NATO's headquarters in Brussels.

"We are prepared to assist those forces in any kind of form which they may take, either within Kabul or beyond the confines of Kabul."

NATO takes command of ISAF, which is currently confined to Kabul and Bagram airbase, on Aug. 11. The 19-nation alliance is looking for the provision of air bases in Tajikistan, Moscow's key ally in the region, where Russia is thought to have between 10,000and 15,000 troops.

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