Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of Afghanistan’s second-biggest insurgent group Hezb-e-Islami, in an interview published on Sunday said he was ready for “meaningful talks” with all parties to end the decade-long war. Hekmatyar’s statement comes after an announcement by the main insurgent group, the Taliban, that they will open a political office in Qatar ahead of possible talks with the US.
But Hekmatyar, a former Afghan prime minister, was dismissive of the results of contacts he said Hezb-e-Islami had already had with Washington and the government of President Hamid Karzai. “We held talks with Kabul government as well as with the Americans on different occasions, but did not receive any clear, acceptable and realistic plan from them worth mentioning,” he told the Afghan Islamic Press news agency.
