Pakistan hosts Afghan-Taliban talks; promised to meet again

Afghan officials are holding talks with Taliban representatives in the Pakistani capital in their first official face-to-face discussions, which the Afghan president said Tuesday were aimed at starting full-fledged negotiations.

“Pakistan expresses its profound gratitude to the Government of Afghanistan and Tehreek-e-Taliban Afghanistan for their willingness to work towards bringing lasting peace in Afghanistan“.

Pakistan is hosting the meeting “as part of the commitment to facilitate an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process”, a statement from Khalilullah said.

In recent months there have been several informal meetings between the Taliban and Afghan officials from varied political backgrounds at venues outside Afghanistan, but little concrete progress appears to have been made.

With USA encouragement, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had been seeking dialogue with the Taliban. Representatives of China and the United States were also present during the meeting, it said.

The talks come after Pakistan Prime Minister’s Adviser on National Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz had said last month that the Afghan government representatives and the Taliban were expected to meet in a week’s time.

He said the overtness of the meeting was a positive development.

Analysts have suggested that the Taliban may want to delay formal peace talks in anticipation of a stronger negotiating position down the line.

Many Afghans remain wary of Pakistan, however, blaming it for helping to bring the Taliban to power in the mid-1990s as well as supporting the militants after their ouster.

“This is an important step in advancing prospects for a credible peace”, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

Both sides kept quiet about the details of the meeting, including who attended, but a military official told Anadolu Agency, on condition of anonymity, that the Taliban delegation stuck to its key demand for a complete withdrawal of foreign forces from the conflict-ridden country.

Sharif cautioned that the talks would be hard and said Afghanistan’s neighbours and the global community should ensure “nobody tries to derail this process”.

“Zakir… threatened Mansour that he and his men would either set up another group or would join Islamic State if he did not stop the negotiations”.

Silent throughout the process has been Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban’s reclusive supreme leader who has not been seen in public since the Taliban was toppled.