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Top Taliban leaders say group has no intention to participate in peace talks

Taliban leadership council met on Tuesday and decided it would not send a delegation to Muscat

Reuters October 14, 2017

Earlier some Taliban leaders had hinted at a possible change in their policy to shift focus to political negotiations instead of war in view of growing casualties of Afghans, but there is no change. PHOTO: REUTERS

KABUL: Representatives of Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the United States will meet in Oman next week to discuss reviving peace talks with Afghan Taliban militants, an Afghan official and a Pakistani foreign ministry source said on Wednesday.

But it was not clear if Afghan Taliban representatives would join the talks. Taliban sources said they had not yet received an invitation and plan to skip Monday’s discussions in Muscat, casting doubt on efforts to revive long-stalled negotiations.

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The four-nation Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QGC), comprising Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the United States, has been trying to ease the path to direct talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, with little success.

Amin Waqad, a close aide to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and a senior member of the High Peace Council (HPC), said, “HPC and government representatives will participate, and it is an important one because the Taliban representatives will be there. We will go with a clear plan.”

A senior Pakistani foreign ministry official confirmed the talks would take place on October 16. Last week, Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif told Voice of America the “quadrilateral arrangement will again be in operation” in Muscat in October.

The US embassy in Islamabad did not comment for the report. Talks and efforts to kick-start negotiations have failed following the 2015 announcement of the death of the Taliban’s founder and long-time leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, in 2013.

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Two senior Afghan Taliban leaders, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the group’s leadership council met on Tuesday and decided it would not send a delegation to Muscat even if the group was invited to participate.

“Till that time, we were not invited, but even if we received any invitation, our senior members decided not to participate in the meeting,” said one of the Taliban leaders.

COMMENTS (1)

Gul Khan | 7 years ago | Reply As long as Taliban think they could win it militarily, they would not bother to negotiate. They need to be punished to the point where they would come to talk peace. Trump strategy is the right strategy. More than 1100 of them were killed by Afghan Army last month but their leadership is very cruel they dont care their comrades being killed flies.

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