Daily Times

The Afghan Taliban on Sunday rejected as rumors media reports about a meeting between several high ranking officials of the insurgent movement and Americans in Bagram.

In a statement, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Taliban has an internationally recognised political office for diplomatic activities in Qatar, and every country including America is able to freely contact and visit them.

“No member of the Islamic Emirate nor any delegation has met anyone in Bagram,” Mujahid said. He also denied reports that the Taliban officials met with the Americans in Dubai.

“It is entirely possible that some self-interested individuals – for financial and other motives – could have tried to fool the Americans with such actions and posed as representatives of the Islamic Emirate to the Americans who have fallen for similar traps multiple times. But the reality remains that all our diplomatic contacts shall be conducted through the Political Office and known addresses,” he said.

Separately, the Taliban have written a letter to several Pakistani ulema, urging them to not join an upcoming joint conference of ulema from both countries to evolve a consensus approach regarding the war in Afghanistan.

Though no date has yet been decided for the conference, however, during his Kabul visit this month, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had agreed on a meeting of a steering committee of the Joint Ulema Conference to be held in Islamabad to make preparations for the conference.

Pakistani and Afghan sources have told Daily Times that both sides had been involved in discussions to hold the conference, however, the Taliban attack in Ghazni affected the process.

Official sources, aware of the consultations for the conference, say that Afghan scholars will suggest names of ulema they believe hold influence over the Taliban for the meeting. Afghanistan believes Pakistani ulema can play a useful role in encouraging the Taliban to end violence and join peace process. Earlier, such conferences have been held in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Kabul, where declarations were issued against violence in Afghanistan. Several Pakistani clerics boycoted the Saudi conference on Taliban’s urging. The 15-member Pakistani delegation that attended the Indonesian conference persuaded the organisers to not specify the Taliban’s name in the joint declaration.

Besides, nearly 2000 Pakistani ulema issued an edict against suicide bombings in Pakistan this January. Afghan president Ashraf Ghani had responded to the edict, titled “Paigham-e-Pakistan”, by pointing out that it did not mention the Taliban fighting in Afghanistan.

In the letter dated Muharram 11 (September 22), the Taliban has urged Pakistani clerics to ‘avoid participation in such conferences as the U.S. wants to weaken the ongoing holy war through conferences of the scholars’.

The Taliban’s letter says the US wants to make Afghanistan as its ‘subservient’ state and to establish military and intelligence bases to use Afghanistan’s strategic location for its objectives and weaken the Muslim world. “If the U.S. succeeds in this sinister designs there is no doubt it will increase difficulties for Pakistan, India, Central Asia, and Arab countries,” the letter reads.

Published in Daily Times, September 24^th 2018.