DOHA: A two-day dialogue between Afghan officials and representatives of Taliban is slated to begin here today.
The dialogue “will be through open discussions about Afghan reconciliation between all parties in Afghanistan”, the Qatar News Agency quoted Yousif Al Sada, Director of the Asian Department at the Foreign Ministry, as saying yesterday.
Al Sada said through this dialogue Qatar is seeking “to bridge the gap in viewpoints between all Afghan parties on all issues and topics that achieve security, peace and stability for the Afghan people”.
Taliban’s official spokesman earlier said the insurgents were sending an eight-member delegation to a conference in Doha held by the Pugwash Council, a global organisation that promotes dialogue to resolve conflicts. But he denied any move towards negotiations, news agencies reported.
Another Taliban leader, however, and the deputy head of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council indicated that face-to-face meetings on the sidelines of that conference were planned.
Such meetings would be the first sign of life in weeks for a hoped-for peace process, but it was unclear whether they would lead to formal talks between the Taliban and the US-backed Afghan government.
Several secret initiatives have failed over the 13-year-old war, and the Taliban recently launched a fierce new offensive that brought its fighters to the outskirts of a northern provincial capital.
Attaullah Ludin, deputy chief of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, said on Friday that he was going to Qatar as part of a 20-member Afghan delegation to have an “open discussion” with the Taliban and other international leaders.
Previous efforts to open channels of communication, including the establishment of a Taliban political office in Qatar in 2013 as part of a US-sponsored push to promote talks, have led nowhere.
Hopes were raised again in February when Pakistan’s army chief told Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that senior Taliban figures were finally open to talks, but since then there has been little progress.
Ghani, who was elected last year, has pushed for peace talks with the Taliban. The Afghan presidential spokesman, Ajmal Abidy, said members of the country’s High Peace Council would attend the talks in Doha in their “personal capacity only”.
In 2013, the Taliban opened an office in Qatar, hoisting the same white flag flown during the Taliban’s five-year rule of Afghanistan that ended with the 2001 US-led invasion. The raising of the flag sparked immediate outrage from the then president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, and the US, derailing talks and eventually leading the Taliban to shutter the office, news agencies reported.
While the office never officially opened, Qatar has become a place to open back-channel communication with the Taliban. Qatari intermediaries helped US officials negotiate the release of the captive US army’s Sgt Bowe Bergdahl last year, American officials have said.
THE PENINSULA
