Taliban refuse to meet US team in Islamabad

PESHAWAR: The Afghan Taliban officially announced on Friday that they would not hold any meeting with the US Representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad in Islamabad.

“We want to make it clear that we will not hold any meeting with Zalmay Khalilzad inIslamabad,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a brief statement released to the media, killing rumours about their meeting with the visiting US delegation.

Senior US officials, including Zalmay Khalilzad, former US ambassador and their representative for Afghanistan, are presently in Pakistan for the past two days and want Pakistan to arrange their meeting with the Afghan Taliban in Islamabad.

Quoting senior government officials, Pakistan’s mainstream media widely reported that the Taliban had agreed to meet with the US delegation in Islamabad and that they would send their 12-member delegation to Pakistan. The Taliban released this statement to deny reports of their meeting with the US delegation.

There has been a deadlock in peace talks after the two sides reportedly developed differences over agenda of the meeting. The Taliban representatives claimed that they had initiated peace talks with the US to discuss and resolve some of the basic issues first. However, they claimed that in the last meeting that took place in Abu Dhabi in December 2018, the US asked them to announce a two-month ceasefire and also include the Afghan government in peace talks.

According to the Taliban sources, it was decided to hold another meeting in the second week of January 2018 in the Saudi capital city of Riyadh. The Taliban claimed thatthey had chosen their representatives for meeting in Saudi Arabia but then all of a sudden, Saudi Arabia made it conditional that the Taliban leadership would need to announce a two-month ceasefire, which they rejected and announced their boycott of peace talks there.

Meanwhile, senior Taliban leaders said some regional powers, including Pakistan, had approached them and wanted them to meet with the US delegation in Islamabad and also include the Afghan government in the peace process.

The Taliban leaders said they had outright rejected this approach. The Taliban said they had repeatedly explained that they would never hold any meeting with the Afghan government, saying they had not changed their stance. “As we know that the Afghan government doesn’t have the power to make decisions, then why should we waste our time by talking to them,” said one senior Taliban leader.

Pleading anonymity, he said they had also made it clear to the regional powers that they were willing to continue peace talks with the US if they were assured that only three issues would be discussed in the meeting, including US withdrawal from Afghanistan, prisoners’ swap and lifting ban on movement of the Taliban leaders.