Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmoud Qureshi called on the leaders of the Afghan Taliban movement to speed up the start of peace talks with the Kabul authorities after the recent stumbling block, while an attack claimed by the movement on Tuesday killed 3 people and targeted an Afghan army base in the north of the country.
Yesterday, after meeting a Taliban delegation in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, Qureshi stressed that there is no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan, and that the solution should be political through dialogue, and that all Afghan parties must seize the opportunity for peace and start an internal dialogue. The minister added that peace in Afghanistan is in the interest of his country.
Last March, the Afghan government and the Taliban were supposed to start political negotiations to end the war that has been raging for more than 19 years. However, negotiations have been postponed many times due to differences over prisoner exchanges, especially the release of Taliban prisoners "accused of bloody attacks."
Taliban delegation
The Pakistani official held talks with a 7-member Taliban delegation headed by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, deputy head of the movement. The talks were also attended by the Director General of the Pakistani Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Fayez Hamid, according to a video published by the official media. A statement by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry stated that the two sides discussed the latest developments in the reconciliation process, with special emphasis on direct dialogue. The statement added that the Taliban informed Qureshi of the implementation of the Doha peace agreement with the United States concluded at the end of last February.
And Anadolu Agency reported that Qureshi warned the Taliban against "spoilers who want to sabotage the fragile peace process, which has been derailed repeatedly in the recent past."
On the other hand, the Afghan President’s spokesman said that Kabul expects Islamabad to cooperate in bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan, adding that Pakistan has yet to fulfill its obligations in this regard.
Balkh attack
The Taliban’s talks in Pakistan came shortly after the movement adopted a suicide truck bomb attack near a military base in Balkh province, in northern Afghanistan. a lot.
As for the Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, he said - in his Twitter account - that the attack was in retaliation after the spread of a video on the Internet showing Afghan soldiers mutilating the bodies of Taliban fighters in the south of the country.
It is noteworthy that Afghanistan has been suffering from a continuous war since October 2001, when an international military coalition led by Washington overthrew the Taliban regime, claiming its association with al-Qaeda, which adopted the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States.