Azerbaijan, Baku, March 16 / Trend V. Zhavoronkova/
NATO, Russia and the Central Asian's countries have a number of common interests in the region, James Appathurai, NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia told in an interview with atlantic-community.org.
Appathurai said he would like to reject the opinion that the West and Russia are competing for influence in the Central Asia.
"We have common interests in Central Asia. And I mean common with the Central Asian countries and NATO, and common between all three if we include Russia as well," he said.
First common interest is the stability in Afghanistan as vital for all that Afghanistan does not once again begin exporting terrorism, extremism, or continue exporting drugs, which of course hit all, Appathurai mentioned.
"So we have an interest in stabilizing Afghanistan, shared by all of us. And the best way to do that is to cooperate," he added.
Appathurai added that NATO, Russia, and Central Asia for example train together their counter narcotic officials, particularly Central Asian, Afghan but also now Pakistani.
Russia plays a very important role in this joint project with NATO allies, he said, and it works very well.
The other NATO's interest in the region is to help the Central Asian countries reach their full potential, including as transit areas for trade, as production and transit areas for energy and that is a mutual interest for everybody, Appathurai added.
"The Central Asian countries are concerned that when 2014 arrives and the Alliance has a much smaller and different presence in Afghanistan, that they will be left with a problem or a growing problem of instability, and terrorism, and extremism, and drugs," he mentioned.
The NATO is committed for the long term to Afghanistan's stability and committed not just rhetorically or politically, the alliance will have people on the ground doing work to help the Afghans stabilize their own country, Appathurai stressed.
"We will also work with the Central Asian countries so that they can protect themselves better, fight against and defend against these many threats. So we're going to offer them more consultation, more exercises, more joint training to help them beef up their own capacity to handle these problems," he added.