Al-Jazeera correspondent quoted the spokesman for the Afghan Reconciliation Committee, Fereydoun Khozon, that the government delegation arrived in the Qatari capital, Doha, at dawn today, Saturday, to hold talks with representatives of the Taliban movement, and while the battles between the two sides continue on several fronts;

Turkey and Russia have both made offers to help contain the conflict.

The spokesman added that the delegation was seeking to push the negotiation process forward after it had stopped for months and had not made any significant progress.

The visit comes after the United States completed the withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan.

The government delegation is led by the head of the Afghan Reconciliation Committee Abdullah Abdullah, and the delegation includes former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Minister of State for Peace Affairs Syed Sadat Naderi, and former Vice President Karim Khalili.

In press statements at Kabul Airport;

Abdullah said that the delegation accompanying Doha has full authority, and expressed his hope for achieving important results regarding the resumption of negotiations with the Taliban.

Abdullah called on the Taliban movement to take advantage of the peace opportunity, before heading to Doha at the head of a government delegation to participate in negotiations with the movement, which launched its third round last week.

For its part, the Taliban said that it had repeatedly affirmed its readiness for dialogue, and had demonstrated this in its negotiations with foreign forces, as he put it.

The spokesman for the movement's political bureau, Muhammad Naim, demanded that "the other party" prove its seriousness in the dialogue, and that its actions do not contradict its statements, "as happened when government forces opened fire on a prison in Kandahar, killing some of its inmates and taking some of them to an unknown location."

Dialogue and airport security

For its part, Russia confirmed - Friday - that it is ready to help start peace talks between the warring parties in Afghanistan.

This came in the words of the Russian Foreign Minister during his participation in the conference "Central and South Asia: Joint Regional Links", which is hosted by Uzbekistan.

"I would like to stress Russia's interest in facilitating dialogue between the warring parties in Afghanistan with the aim of ending the war that has been going on for years and establishing a peaceful, independent and neutral Afghanistan," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

Lavrov said that the US mission in Afghanistan "failed", and expressed his country's fears of the possibility of the transfer of instability from Afghanistan to neighboring countries.

During his meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on the sidelines of the conference, the Russian minister stressed the importance of launching an Afghan dialogue as soon as possible to end the armed conflict in the country and achieve stability.


For his part, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that it is not possible to talk about real peace in the Asian continent without bringing peace to Afghanistan.

He expressed Turkey's readiness to continue operating and ensuring the security of Hamid Karzai International Airport in the capital, Kabul, "for the sake of the Afghan brothers."

In turn, the US President's envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, said that the Taliban assured him that they would not launch any attacks on neighbors, and that they would not allow Afghan soil to be turned into an arena for fighting against the United States and its allies.

On the sidelines of the conference, the envoy pointed out that Afghanistan today is different from what it was 20 years ago in terms of forming a state administration and establishing its democratic institutions, as he put it.

field level

On the field level, government forces clashed with Taliban fighters yesterday, Friday, after they launched an operation to regain control of the main "Spin Boldak" border crossing with Pakistan, while the movement seeks to advance north and seize the stronghold of the "war leader" against the movement, Abdul Rashid Dostum.

The Afghan Defense Ministry said it launched a military operation to regain control of this border crossing, two days after the Taliban took control of it.

Last Wednesday morning, Taliban fighters took control of the "Chimn" border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"Chemen" is one of the main crossings between the Afghan province of Kandahar and the western province of Baluchistan, and the most important crossing from the strategic point of view, and most of the logistical support materials for the international forces operating in Afghanistan have been passing through during the past 20 years.

The Afghan ministry said - in a statement - that 20 Taliban militants were killed in a raid carried out by the army in the Shuhada district in Badakhshan province in the north of the country.

Battles are taking place between government forces and Taliban fighters on the outskirts of Sheberghan, the capital of Jawzjan province, in the north of the country, according to the deputy governor of the province.

For its part, the Taliban announced the arrival of its militants to the outskirts of Sheberghan, the stronghold of leader Dostum.