Women to be part of Taliban team in Afghan peace talks in Doha

KABUL: Women will be included for the first time in the Taliban delegation for talks this month with US officials and Afghan representatives in Qatar on the future of Afghanistan, the movement’s main spokesman has said.

For a group known for its strictly conservative attitude to women’s rights, the move represents a step towards addressing demands that women be included in the talks, aimed at ending more than 17 years of war in Afghanistan. “There will be women among Taliban delegation members in the Doha, Qatar meeting,” Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s main spokesman, said by telephone on Monday, reported international media.

He did not name the women, but added: “These women have no family relationship with the senior members of the Taliban, they are normal Afghans, from inside and outside the country, who have been supporters and part of the struggle of the Islamic emirate.”

The meeting on 19-21 April in Doha will be the latest in a series of talks between Taliban and US officials and is expected to include a 150-strong delegation of Afghan politicians and civil society figures.

However, Taliban spokesmen say the group has changed and encourages girls’ education and other women’s rights within an Islamic sharia system. Civil society groups, the western-backed government and Afghanistan’s international partners have pressed for women to take part in the talks and news of the Taliban delegation was welcomed. Fawzia Koofi, a former member of the Afghan parliament who took part in a previous round of meetings in Moscow, said the presence of women in the Taliban team was a “good step”.

“Only women can feel the pain and miseries that Afghan women have suffered. The presence of women among the Taliban negotiators shows that the Taliban’s ideology has changed,” she said.

Meanwhile the government of Afghanistan has prepared the list of 250 people, including some women, political figures and government officials to attend the upcoming peace talks with the Taliban representatives in Doha, the capital of Qatar, expected to open on Friday, said a statement of Presidential Media Relations office on Tuesday.

The delegation, according to the statement, includes representatives from political parties, Jihadi leaders, religious scholars, families of martyrs, government-owned peace council, legislators, civil society, women, youths, journalists, government officials and tribal elders.

President Ashraf Ghani’s aide Amrullah Saleh, head of Administrative Office of the President Abdul Waheed Qatali, government's key critic Ata Mohammad Noor, independent presidential runner Haneef Atmar and his vice-president nominee Younus Qanooni as well as some cabinet ministers are also in the list, the statement added.

Mohammad Khan and Mohammad Mohaqqeq, two aides of the National Unity Government's Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah are also members of the delegation. President Ghani's spokesman Haroon Chakhansuri has told a news briefing that the list introduced a delegation with members of all segments of the Afghan society. The intra-Afghan dialogue has been slated for April 19-21 in Doha to find a negotiated settlement to Afghanistan's protracted war and civil strife.