ISLAMABAD:
Afghan Taliban leader Agha Mutasim Jan said he would join the recently launched peace talks on Thursday, saying he supports the intra-Afghan dialogue.
“I fully support the intra-Afghan dialogue. This is a good beginning and there is a strong possibility that we all join the process,” he told a local media outlet in an interview.
Mutasim, a close confidant of the Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar, said he sees the face-to-face talks held on July 7 between the representatives of the Taliban and the Afghan government as a “unique peace process” as it featured all important internal and external stakeholders.
He had served as finance minister during the Taliban government, between 1996 and 2001, and the powerful Taliban commission.
Unidentified gunmen had shot and critically injured Mutasim in Karachi in 2010 apparently because of his quest for a peaceful solution to the Afghan problem.