Kabul, Afghan Taliban begin talks in Islamabad

ISLAMABAD: Afghan government officials and Taliban representatives on Tuesday began two days of discussions in Pakistan, Afghan officials said, signalling a possible start to a formal peace process, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The meeting was one of the highest-level contacts between the two warring parties in recent years, offering hope that a formal peace process aimed at ending the long-running conflict could soon begin.
A senior Afghan official said the US and Chinese officials took part in Tuesday’s meeting as observers. Their attendance, together with Pakistan’s willingness to play host, is significant as it points to a broadening involvement of key players in a possible peace process.
It is understood that the first phase of the talks process between the Afghan government and the Taliban was completed on Tuesday. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a statement said the meeting was a breakthrough, adding the talks were overt, not covert.
Representatives from the Afghan government and the Taliban have met informally several times in recent months, but it is the first time Kabul has sent an official team.But it was unclear whether the meeting in Islamabad was fully backed by the Taliban leadership. Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the militantgroup, said he wasn’t able to confirm whether the Islamabad talks took place at all.
A person briefed on the meeting said the three-member Taliban delegation was led by Mullah Abbas Akhund, who served as health minister when the Taliban were in power between 1996 to 2001.
The eight-member Afghan delegation arrived in Islamabad on a UN flight on Monday for meetings that were requested by the Kabul government and facilitated by Pakistan, according to international officials.
The Taliban and the Kabul government have held a series of informal meetings in recent months, most recently in Oslo, to explore the possibility of a formal peace process.The Taliban repeatedly have insisted that only members of its Qatar-based political office are allowed to talk peace. Privately, Taliban members have indicated to the Afghan government that they wanted clarification from Washington on the future US and coalition troop presence in Afghanistan and that they wanted to talk to US officials about this.
A spokeswoman for the US Embassy in Kabul couldn’t immediately comment on the issue.Beijing has become a more influential player in Afghanistan in recent months, saying it wants to help facilitate reconciliation in the country. In May, with the help of Islamabad, it hosted a meeting between Afghanistan’s top peace envoy and former Taliban officials in the city of Urumqi, in Western China.
Mariana Baabar adds: In the Narendra Modi like fashion, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani gave the ‘breaking news’ to the region when he tweeted on Tuesday that a delegation from the Afghan High Peace Council of Afghanistan had travelled to Islamabad for negotiations with the Afghan Taliban.
“A delegation from the High Peace Council of Afghanistan has travelled to Pakistan for negotiations with the Taliban,” Ashraf Ghani stated on his official twitter account.With Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif holding the portfolio of foreign minister and the foreign policy adviser and special assistant also accompanying him abroad, strict silence was observed at the Foreign Office at an extremely important juncture of the Pak-Afghan relations.
Earlier, during the PPP government, the Foreign Office and the Afghan High Peace Council had both in a joint statement agreed to work closely with other international partners to remove the names from the UN sanctions list of the potential negotiators amongst the Taliban.
In support of peace and reconciliation process and in response to the requests of the Afghan government/HPC, a number of Taliban detainees are being released. The two sides appealed to the Taliban and other armed opposition groups to participate in the Afghan-led and Afghan-owned reconciliation process to end the violence and asked all concerned countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US to facilitate safe passage to potential negotiators to advance the reconciliation process.
Meetings between the Afghan Taliban and representatives of Kabul have been recently held in the Middle East, Europe and China though both sides have kept these deliberations away from the limelight. In a progressive move, the Afghan delegation included women in these talks with the Taliban.
Foreign news wires also spoke of the Afghan deputy foreign minister Hekmat Karzai leading the delegation accompanied by former governor Haji Deen Muhammad to Islamabad but there was no confirmation when The News contacted the Foreign Office and Afghan ambassador.