Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalan discussed with the US special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad in Istanbul the recent developments and the Afghan peace meetings scheduled to take place in Turkey next month.
During the meeting, Qalan explained that his country will continue to stand by the Afghan people, noting that the Istanbul meetings will be supportive of peace talks between representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban movement.
The US State Department had reported that the US special envoy to Afghanistan began last Thursday a tour in the region that would lead him to Turkey in preparation for the Istanbul conference.
The State Department said in a statement that Ambassador Khalilzad will build on the recent efforts of regional and international partners to encourage the Afghan parties to speed up their negotiations to end the conflict.
She added that Khalilzad would participate with representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban in their preparatory efforts to hold talks on reaching a political settlement that would lead to a permanent ceasefire and the establishment of a lasting and just peace.
The Afghan National Security Adviser accused the Taliban of not adhering to the contents of the Doha Agreement (Al-Jazeera)
Doha meeting
For his part, Afghan National Security Adviser Hamdallah Moheb revealed that the government team went to the Qatari capital, Doha, to meet with a Taliban delegation to discuss the Turkey meeting.
Moheb said that preparation for the Turkey meeting next month is continuing, and that the government is waiting to know the level of representation of the Taliban in it in order to make a decision about its level of representation as well.
The Afghan National Security Adviser stressed that there is no connection between the withdrawal of US forces and the Doha agreement, "because the Taliban did not abide by the contents of the agreement, such as reducing violence and a ceasefire."
The Afghan official accused the Taliban movement of focusing during the past year on war rather than peace in Afghanistan, and said that the parties participating in the Moscow conference "rejected the Taliban's return to rule Afghanistan."
Muhammad Naim considered that the date for the withdrawal of American forces was set in the Doha agreement (Al-Jazeera)
Taliban justify
On the other hand, the spokesman for the Taliban’s political office and a member of the movement’s delegation to the negotiations, Muhammad Naim, said that the movement’s threatening to return to armed action against foreign forces is a natural reaction to what he described as the vague statements issued by the United States regarding the withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan.
Naim added to Al-Jazeera that the date for the withdrawal of foreign forces is specified in the peace agreement signed by Washington and endorsed by the UN Security Council, and that America must abide by what it has signed.
On Thursday, US President Joe Biden said that it would be difficult to withdraw the last American forces in Afghanistan by the end of the deadline included in the Doha Agreement, concluded in February 2020, which set the first of next May as the last deadline for the withdrawal of American and foreign forces in general from the country. Biden said he does not envision US soldiers remaining in Afghanistan until next year.