Afghan Taliban upbeat at trilateral talks

However, the development has angered Afghan government

ISLAMABAD: The Afghan Taliban have responded positively to the trilateral talks in Moscow by Pakistan, China and Russia which supported lifting of international sanctions on the Taliban leaders.

The Taliban political office, in a rare statement, was of the view that the three key stakeholders in Afghanistan have “understood the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is a political and military force.”

Although the Taliban are optimistic at the outcome of the December 27 talks, the development has angered the Afghan government and some lawmakers who described the talks minus Afghanistan as against the sovereignty of the country.

Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesperson Shakeeb Mustaghni reportedly remarked that all issues discussed at the tripartite meeting belonged to the Afghan government rather than any other country.

“The proposal forwarded in the Moscow meeting of delisting members of the Islamic Emirate is a positive step forward in bringing peace and security to Afghanistan. We welcome this announcement but to achieve true peace, the basic rights of the oppressed Afghan people must be restored so they too can have an independent country and travel freely as the rest of the nations,” Taliban political office spokesperson, Muhammad Sohail Shaheen, said.



“It is joyous to see that the regional countries have also understood that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is a political and military force,” Shaheen said in a formal reaction to the Moscow meeting’s joint statement.

The three countries agreed to continue their efforts towards further facilitating the Afghan-led, Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan according to the known principles of “reintegration of the armed opposition into peaceful life.”

However, the Taliban statement is quite about their joining of the peace negotiations. The Taliban dilemma is they have always followed the policy of secrecy and do not publicly offer comments whether they have any plan to focus on political process. The Taliban spokesperson even did not mention anything about the trilateral meeting’s call for the reconciliation process.

Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said on Thursday that the trilateral meeting aimed to hold “informal discussion on issues of regional peace and stability and situation in Afghanistan.” He said Afghanistan has been invited to join the mechanism. “We adhere to our commitment for peace and stability in Afghanistan and to contribute for development of Afghanistan,” Zakaria said during his weekly briefing in Islamabad.