Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday that Moscow has an interest in including Iran in the Russia-China-U.S. format for Afghanistan talks.

“We have a dialogue with them [the United States] on Afghanistan. There is a Russia-China-U.S. format that Pakistan has joined. There is interest in connecting Iran to this format. It can be promising,” Lavrov told the Rossiya 24 broadcaster, according to Urdu Point News.

In a meeting with Afghanistan’s Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in Uzbekistan on Friday, Iranian Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri said that people in Afghanistan should decide their own fate, reaffirming Tehran’s support for Afghan-Afghan peace talks.

Iran has been engaged in separate talks with the Taliban group.

In December 2018, Tehran announced that it had been holding talks with the Afghan Taliban with the knowledge of the Afghan government.

Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, made the announcement during a visit to Kabul on December 26.

Shamkhani said the talks between Iran and the Taliban were held “to help curb the security problems in Afghanistan.”

“The Afghan government has been informed of the communications and talks carried out with the Taliban, and this process will continue,” Shamkhani added.

Shamkhani broke the story just days after the Taliban attended reconciliation talks with a U.S. peace envoy in Abu Dhabi.

NA/PA