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Taliban officers say a senior delegation returned early Saturday to Qatar, paving the best way for the beginning of peace talks with the Afghan authorities which might be anticipated to happen within the tiny Gulf state.
The officers spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to converse to the media.
The negotiations are the second, essential half to a peace deal the US signed with the Taliban in February in Doha.
The Taliban delegation’s arrival in Qatar, the place the group retains its political workplace, got here as a high Afghan authorities physique blamed the militants for delays in beginning talks.
In a tweet on Saturday, the spokesman for Kabul’s High Council for National Reconciliation, Faraidoon Khwazoon, stated the federal government was prepared to begin direct negotiations.
“The process of releasing the prisoners is over and there is no excuse for delaying the talks, but the Taliban are still not ready to take part in the talks, ” he stated, with out additional elaboration.
Until its February deal with the US, the Taliban refused to straight negotiate with the Afghan authorities.
Washington has ramped up stress on Afghans on either side of the battle to open up negotiations over what a post-war Afghanistan would possibly seem like, how rights of ladies and minorities could be protected, and the way the tens of hundreds of armed Taliban and government-allied militias are disarmed and re-integrated.
The US Security Adviser Robert O’Brien had an extended name with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani final week. American officers have additionally pressed neighboring Pakistan to get the Taliban to the desk.
Relentless delays over the alternate of prisoners —5,000 held by the Afghan authorities and 1,000 by the Taliban — have hindered efforts to get intra-Afghan talks began.
In late August, a delegation led by the Taliban’s political workplace head and the chief negotiator of the February deal with the United States, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar got here to Pakistan. While little was revealed in regards to the particulars of his conferences with Pakistani officers, it’s believed he was pressed to get began with intra-Afghan talks.
With lots of the Taliban management council residing in Pakistan, Islamabad has been pressed by Washington to use its affect to push negotiations ahead. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has repeatedly stated he needs peace talks began and {that a} navy resolution for Afghanistan is an impossibility.
Pakistani officers reportedly met a second time with Baradar on Friday earlier than his return to Doha once more urgent for a swift begin to Afghan peace talks, it’s believed.
US and Afghan officers have each stated they need to see a discount in violence within the battle going into talks with the Taliban, however the militant group maintains {that a} cease-fire would solely be on the agenda as soon as talks start.
Washington’s February settlement with the Taliban was reached to permit the exit of American troops after almost 20 years at battle in holding with a promise President Donald Trump made through the 2016 US election marketing campaign. The withdrawal, which has already begun, isn’t depending on the success of the Afghan negotiations however slightly on commitments made by the Taliban to combat terrorist teams and guarantee Afghanistan can’t be used to assault America or its allies.
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