- Statement issued from Abdullah Abdullah’s office says incident ‘once again exposed the nature of war imposed by terrorist groups and proves their organisation and centres are located outside Afghan borders’
- Pak envoy to UN says Pakistan ready to host another round of peace talks but ‘would first like to see anti-Pak rhetoric from Kabul to cease’
The Afghan government on Thursday said that Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour had been injured in a firing incident in Pakistan, just as Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to United Nations (UN) Dr Maleeha Lodhi told the UN that Pakistan is ready to host another round of Afghan peace talks, “But we would like to see the anti-Pakistan rhetoric from Kabul to cease”.
“The government confirms the incident in which Mullah Mansour was wounded on the other side of the border, but we do not have any confirmed reports about his death,” said a statement in Pashto and Dari languages on the official account of Afghan Chief Executive Dr Abdullah Abdullah.
Afghan officials on Wednesday had claimed Mansour was injured in a firefight following a verbal dispute at a meeting of militant commanders in Pakistan.
Kabul reiterated the allegation that the Taliban insurgency was directed from across the border.
The incident, statement said, once again exposed the nature of war imposed by terrorist groups and proves their “organisation and centres are located outside Afghan borders.”
However, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid strongly refuted the allegation.
“It is part of the propaganda unleashed by Afghan intelligence. The Amirul Momineen is safe and was not in the area where the alleged firefight took place,” Mujahid said in a statement.
“The enemy falsely claimed that the incident took place at house of a Mullah Abdullah Sarhadi. His house is not in Kuchlak region.”
Meanwhile, Foreign Office spokesperson Qazi Khalilullah said Pakistan was “not aware of the incident. However, we have noted that Taliban spokesperson has denied that any such firefight took place”.
PEACE TALKS:
At the United Nations, Dr Maleeha Lodhi said that Afghan government should formally request Pakistan to facilitate the second round of talks between Taliban rebels and government.
She said that for negotiated peace, Pakistan has offered its assistance but Afghan government should make a request to Pakistan to revive and renew the peace process so that an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace process can get under way and, “over time we can see a return to peace to people of Afghanistan”.
The people of Afghanistan have suffered a lot due to foreign invasion, conflict and internal civil war, that is why they deserved a better future, she remarked.
Dr Lodhi said the point she had made at the UNGA was that there were two parts to Afghan peace; one is imposition of military solution and the other is negotiated peace.
Military solution, she said, had proved to be elusive in the past and it would prove elusive in the future too.
“The international consensus today is in favour of the negotiated peace,” she added.
Pakistan had hosted a meeting was hosted between the Afghan Government and Afghan Taliban representatives in Murree on 7 July 2015 along with the representatives from China and USA.
The participants were duly mandated by their respective leadership and expressed their collective desire to bring peace to Afghanistan and the region.
The second round of the talks, which was scheduled to be held in Pakistan on 31 July 2015 was postponed in view of the reports regarding the death of Mulla Omar and the leadership crisis among Taliban.