Taliban: "evil" parties are working against peace

The Taliban in Afghanistan said that there are both internal and external actors that they describe as evil, working actively against the peace process.

In its weekly editorial, published by its website, the movement added that the repeated attacks targeting religious celebrations in the capital, Kabul, are aimed at stirring religious and ethnic hatred in Afghan society.

The Taliban said that what it described as the enemy seeks to sabotage the peace process at any cost, and with it, to extend the stay of foreigners, with the aim of continuing the killing machine to claim the lives of innocent Afghans.

The movement added that the international community must know that a political solution to the conflict in Afghanistan is the only way to move forward with the complete withdrawal of foreign forces.

On Thursday, Mutlaq Al-Qahtani, the Qatari foreign minister’s envoy, said that Afghan President Muhammad Ashraf Ghani expressed his agreement to hold Afghan negotiations in the Qatari capital, Doha, after the Qatari envoy met President Ghani in Kabul, where they discussed launching the Afghan negotiations.

Siddig Siddiqui, spokesman for the Afghan President, said that the State of Qatar supports the efforts of the Afghan government to bring peace to Afghanistan, and that his government looks forward to a greater Qatari role in this field.

The US envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, praised the recent decisions of the Afghan government and the Taliban movement, in which the two parties released large numbers of detainees according to the Doha agreement signed by the American side with the Taliban on February 29.

The Doha agreement provides for the departure of foreign forces from Afghanistan within 14 months in exchange for security guarantees from the Taliban, and requires the release of the detainees, in preparation for launching peace talks between the Taliban and the Kabul government.

The American envoy, in a tweet on Twitter, welcomed the Taliban's readiness to participate in the negotiations within a week of the commitment to release the prisoners, describing these developments as positive despite the fact that some details need to be worked out.