Russia is strengthening its relations with Islamic countries, particularly with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
In mid-May, KazanForum 2024 was held in Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, a Republic of the Russian Federation. The event is characterized as one of Russia’s premier international economic gatherings.
KazanForum aims to strengthen “economic, educational, social and cultural” ties between the Russian Federation and the OIC, of which “Palestine” is listed as a member state. It also promotes Islamic financial institutions within the Russian Federation and globally. According to the Anadolu News Agency:
The forum’s primary subjects cover Islamic finance, investment, industry, small and medium-sized businesses, diplomacy, international cooperation, technology, tourism, and medical and sports.
The chiefs of major broadcasting companies and national news agencies from the Russian Federation and the OIC will be present at special media events held during the forum.
More detail is here: “The Significance Of ‘The XV Russia – Islamic World: KazanForum 2024,” by Tufail Ahmad, MEMRI, June 5, 2024:
The KazanForum 2024 brought together more than 1,000 Islamic religious scholars from over 70 Russian regions, including the Donetsk People’s Republic, according to an official report.
Marat Khusnullin, the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia and head of the organizing committee of KazanForum 2024, told the delegates: “I would like to thank the Muslim clergy representatives, who have arrived in Kazan from across all Russia, as well as the leadership of the Republic of Tatarstan, for joining efforts to contribute to the sustainable development of the Russian statehood.” He added: “[I]n this difficult time of drastic challenges, we should take every effort to enhance interethnic communication and inter-faith dialogue in order to preserve our large country’s cultural diversity, traditional values, and unity of the nation.”
As Russia faced isolation from the West over its war with Ukraine, it has sought out and found new and mostly anti-West partners, establishing unprecedented levels of cooperation with the most unsavory among them, including Iran and the Taliban, which it recently delisted as a terrorist organization.
Russia also invited the Taliban to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which is now underway from June 5-8. It is a high-profile international event where billion-dollar deals are struck. It’s also a major follow-up to KazanForum 2024. According to MEMRI, KazanForum is one of only three events that enjoy federal status in the Russian Federation. The other two are the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok and the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
More than 17,000 participants from 130 countries attended the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum last year, including Italy and Spain. In the past, France, China, India, Germany, Japan and even America have attended. This year, the Forum brings together delegates from 136 countries, including Azerbaijan, Brazil, Venezuela, India, Kazakhstan China, Africa, Oman and Belarus. Overall, reports have been quite sketchy about who is attending, given Russia’s war with Ukraine, but Western countries have shunned it.
Economic and trade opportunities are now the top goal for the Taliban delegation, which eagerly accepted Russia’s invitation to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Many reports have been using the more sanitized term, the Islamic Emirate, to reference the Taliban, as the brutal jihad group attains respectable diplomatic status globally, thanks to Russia et al.
At this Forum, the Taliban is rubbing shoulders with representatives from a “large number of countries” and organizations, all while it severely oppresses women and minorities back home. Another feature of the Forum is a special International Youth Economic Forum on June 8. Participants include “young entrepreneurs, managers, talented students, postgraduates and scientists, including those awarded scholarships, grants and prizes of the President of the Russian Federation.”
Russia is actively working to normalize and legitimize the Taliban, while the Taliban delegation in St. Petersburg courts strategic international players, including Iran and China. Back in September, before the death of Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi, Vladimir Putin discussed with Raisi Iran’s full-scale involvement in BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).
With an American president who has helped strengthen Iran, humiliated himself (and his nation) in Afghanistan, and betrayed Israel, earning the global distinction of being the declining president, America stands at a precipice. The dangers facing a diminishing America (with wide-open borders) and the West are even more pronounced given the Russian alliance with the Taliban and the OIC. The rapid pace at which the world has realigned is alarming.
Tatanka says
The west can only blame itself for alienating Russia
࿗Infidel࿘ says
?
I recall the Tucker interview w/ Putin, where Putin told him that both Yeltsin and later Putin asked about joining NATO, and the answer was a resounding No. Had it been yes, then Russia would never have cared whether there were Western troops in Ukraine, and NATO’s core function of combating Communism could have continued against China. It could also have reviewed the rationale of retaining Turkey as a member, particularly after the rise of Erdogan
Today, you have Moscow as a vassal of the Chicoms, and an ally of the OIC. It’s hard to imagine a stupider foreign policy on Russia than the one we’ve had since 1992
somehistory says
A very large group of very evil people.
How many of the mozlums attending are/were looking at the throats of the *infidels* with sharp knife thoughts and gaining that perverse fake paradise?
How many *infidels* are/were wearing high collars and hoping they don’t say anything the mozlums consider ‘phobic’?