Delegates meet in Islamabad to resurrect Afghanistan peace talks

“It is important that no preconditions are attached to the reconciliation process, as it will create difficulties in bringing Taliban to the negotiating table”, said Sartaj Aziz, foreign affairs advisor to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Monday’s talks do not include the Taliban, but Javid Faisal, a spokesman for Afghanistan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, said the Pakistani government will provide a list of Taliban representatives who are willing to participate in the peace process.

He said the foremost task of the Group is to define the overall direction of the reconciliation process along with goals and targets to set with a view to creating conducive environment for holding directing talks between Afghan Government and Taliban groups.

A subsequent power struggle within the Taliban has raised questions about who would represent the insurgents if the talks with Kabul are revived.

The meeting comes as battlefield losses in Afghanistan are mounting and entire swaths of the country that cost hundreds of U.S.-led coalition and Afghan military lives to secure slip back into Taliban hands. Richard Olson, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan is seen at left.

“We haven’t received any formal message for peace talks so far and therefore we didn’t appoint our team for negotiations”, he said.

The group is expected to keep up the fight even if peace talks get off the ground in order to secure territory and improve their leverage in the negotiations.

Held in Islamabad on Monday, the first session of the Quadrilateral Coordination Group on Afghanistan – comprised of Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and the US – emphasized the need for direct talks between the two sides in hopes of ending a conflict that has claimed thousands of lives.

A senior Taliban commander said Sirajuddin Haqqani, Mansour’s deputy and the head of the feared Haqqani network blamed for a series of suicide attacks in Kabul, may take part.

The announcement led the Taliban to pull out of the talks after just one meeting hosted by Islamabad.

Pakistan had brokered a rare face-to-face meeting between Afghan officials and Taliban representatives in July previous year.

But a splinter group, formed after a dispute in leadership followed the reveal of Mullah Omar’s death, scoffed at the involvement of the United States, China and Pakistan.

Pakistan’s powerful chief of army staff, General Raheel Sharif, visited Kabul at the end of the year as well.

The Express Tribune reported that Taliban were not ready for talks with Kabul government as they believe that it was useless to hold peace parleys with “powerless” administration.

Afghanistan has said the aim is to work out a road map for peace negotiations and a way of assessing if they remain on track. The talks will resume after they collapsed last summer, leading to a fall and winter of increased fighting between the government and the insurgents.