Four-country talks resume on path to Afghan peace

China, the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan have launched their third round of talks aimed at finding a way to get the warring Taliban to sit and talk peace with the Afghan government.

Pakistan and Afghan intelligence chiefs Thursday held talks in Islamabad in an effort to boost intelligence sharing and bridge trust gap, official sources said. “They need lasting peace and stability”, Aziz said.

The meeting was earlier planned to be held in Islamabad.

“I hope (QCG) on Afghanistan will soon meet Afghanistan government officials and Taliban representatives for reconciliation”.

The group has so far held three meeting to move beyond the continuous cycle of conflict by engaging the Taliban who have so far not joined the reconciliation process even though the main faction of Taliban, led by Mullah Akhtar Mansur, has hinted at joining it at an appropriate time.

In January, the Islamist group said it would not enter into a direct dialogue with Kabul until a series of preconditions had been met.

“There might be groups among the Taliban who might be willing to talk and give up violence”, Abdullah said. It should identify and stipulate various stages of the process while measuring the progress being made at each stage. The four-nation mechanism is very important because of the participation of the United States and China -both are key stakeholders in peace and stability in Afghanistan.

MoFA officials are optimistic regarding the gravity and commitments by the stakeholders of the quadrilateral meeting, saying the roadmap once finalized will hopefully help in creation of a comprehensive framework and a clear path for peace talks. However, the participants want some confidence building measures to encourage the Taliban come to the negotiations table.

“This will contribute to imparting a momentum to the process offering incentive of political mainstreaming to the insurgent groups, and gradually shrink the space for the irreconcilables”, he said.

The advisor emphasized that political reconciliation is the only viable option for promoting peace in Afghanistan.

Pakistan – the Taliban’s historic backers – hosted a milestone first round of talks directly with the Taliban in July a year ago.