Afghan, Taliban sit on talks table, peace on menu

• Meeting participants in Al-Khor emerged smiling but progress unclear as they refused to talk to reporters
• Pakistan supports talks between Afghan govt and Taliban in Qatar

Taliban representatives met with Afghan political figures for a second day on Sunday, but it was unclear if the dialogue hosted by Qatar moved any closer to long-awaited formal negotiations to end Afghanistan’s devastating war.

Participants in the meeting in Al-Khor, a seaside town north of Doha, emerged from the venue smiling and laughing on Sunday, but they refused to talk to reporters.

An Afghan who was part of the talks said that the Taliban and several other Afghan political movements were participating and all sides had agreed not to make any statements until a common statement had been agreed upon.

The Qatar meeting was the first sign of life in weeks for the hoped-for peace process to end the more than 13-year-old war between the Taliban and the US-backed Afghan government.

Several previous initiatives have failed over the years to end the war that has killed tens of thousands of Afghans since the US and its allies drove the Taliban regime from power in 2001.

The informal talks came even as fighting in Afghanistan escalated after the withdrawal of most US and allied troops.

The Taliban recently launched a fierce new offensive in northern Afghanistan that brought its fighters to the outskirts of Kunduz city, a provincial capital.

Afghan police and army soldiers have launched a counter-offensive in Kunduz, but the Taliban advance has proved a severe test of the NATO-trained Afghan security forces.

The Afghan government has made no official statement on the meetings, though a member of the country’s High Peace Council confirmed a delegation would attend meetings in Qatar with the Taliban.

The Qatar meetings are being held behind closed doors, and there has been confusion over their nature.

The Taliban’s official spokesman has denied any peace talks, saying representatives were only attending a world affairs forum organised by Pugwash Council, a global organisation that promotes conflict resolution.

But Qatar’s foreign ministry later announced it was holding “open discussions” involving the Taliban and Afghan figures aiming to bring reconciliation. It was not immediately clear if the two events were one and the same.

PAK SUPPORTS RECONCILIATION PROCESS:

Pakistan had no comment on whether it had representatives at the Qatar meetings but welcomed the talks between the Afghan Taliban and members of the Kabul-backed negotiators in Qatar where both sides sat face-to-face on the second day on Sunday to share proposals for a solution to the problem.

“We support any formal or informal talks that lead to reconciliation in Afghanistan,” Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry said at the Foreign Office when asked about Pakistan’s response to the conference in Qatar.

“Pakistan backs every gathering aimed at achieving the goal of the peace in Afghanistan,” he said.

The meeting was organised by the Canadian-based Pugwash, a group that claims to promote dialogues.

A Taliban source from Qatar Sunday told a news outfit that head of the eight-member Taliban delegation, Sher Muhammad Abbas Stanikzai, read out a written statement in the conference that could also be released to the media.

The Taliban spokesman says participation in the Qatar conference “should not be misconstrued as peace or negotiation talks.”

A 20-member delegation from Afghanistan including members of the High Peace Council is attending the conference which has assumed importance at a time when Taliban have refused to join the intra-Afghan dialogue. The peace council members include its spokesperson Maulvi Shehzada Shahid and a senior member Attaulah Ludin.

A two-member team of Hizb-e-Islami (Hekmatyar), the second largest resistance movement in Afghanistan, is also part of the Qatar talks.