The Afghan Taliban regime Thursday attacked the United States and Russia for plotting to slap more sanctions on the ruling religious militia.
The Taliban foreign ministry said Russian and US officials had met with "heinous and filthy aims" to discuss harsher sanctions against the radical Islamic movement.
It said Washington and Moscow were using human rights and Afghanistan's drugs problem as an "old weapon" against the Taliban.
"This negative and hostile propaganda by these countries which consider themselves as founders and upholders of human rights will have negative consequences in future," the ministry said in a statement.
US Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering held talks in Moscow Tuesday with a Russian delegation co-chaired by former foreign intelligence chief and current First Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Vyacheslav Trubnikov.
They discussed the threat of Afghanistan's civil war spilling over into the Central Asian region, which is already battling to control a number of militant Islamic groups.
The October 12 blast which ripped through a US Navy destroyer in the Yemeni port of Aden, killing 17 people, would also be raised, sources said.
Pickering said after the meeting that both countries had agreed to intensify sanctions and shared a "deep sense of common understanding of the threat" posed by the Taliban.
But the militia's foreign ministry said Washington and Moscow were trying to confuse world opinion on the Taliban, which has been laboring under UN aviation and financial sanctions imposed in November last year.
The restrictions came in response to the Taliban's refusal to hand over suspected terrorist leader Osama bin Laden for trial over his alleged involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings in East Africa that killed 224 people.
The Taliban, renowned for their ultra-othodox interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, have harbored bin Laden since 1996, believing it is against the country's traditions to betray a Muslim to his enemies -- KABUL (AFP)
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