Daily Times

Senior Afghan and Pakistani officials will hold talks in Islamabad this week that will focus on efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table with the Afghan government.

Taliban’s refusal to sit with the Afghan government remains a big challenge for all stakeholders. The US and the Afghan government are urging Pakistan to encourage the Taliban to join intra-Afghan talks. However, Islamabad insists it is a “shared responsibility”, particularly of those who have contacts with the Taliban political office.

Pakistan facilitated the US-Taliban talks in the UAE on December 17-18 but failed to convince Taliban leaders to meet Afghan officials, who were in Abu Dhabi, to join the meeting that was also attended by Saudi and UAE officials.

Omar Daudzai, secretary of the High Peace Council, is scheduled to arrive in Islamabad on Tuesday to explore ways for bringing the Taliban to the negotiations table, official and diplomatic sources told Daily Times. Daudzai, who is also President Ashraf Ghani’s special regional envoy for developing consensus on peace, will meet Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and other officials. Sources said Daudzai would hand over a special message from President Ghani to Pakistani leaders.

HPC spokesman Syed Ihsan Tahiri told reporters in Kabul that Daudzai-led delegation will meet Pakistan’s foreign minister, army chief, influential political and religious leaders and possibly the prime minister.

According to Afghanistan’s 1TV, “The four-day visit would begin on Tuesday, with the agenda of encouraging Islamabad to facilitate negotiations between Kabul and the Taliban to create consensus among regional countries for Afghan peace.”

Tahiri said the delegation would include head of HPC secretariat, Omar Daudzai, and three other officials, including one from the Afghanistan Foreign Ministry.

The Afghan delegation will visit Pakistan at a time when Taliban and the American officials are set to hold a new round of talks in Qatar, according to Taliban officials.

Afghan officials earlier said Saudi Arabia had also offered peace talks; however, Tahiri said Sunday that the date for the meeting had not been decided.

A Taliban official told Daily Times last week that they had also not received any invitation, but did not rule out possibility for such a meeting in Saudi Arabia.

“If they (Saudi Arabia) want to have relations with us, our response will be positive like we have relations with other countries,” a Taliban leader said.

The HPC, which is mandated to hold talks with the Taliban, had advised the Kabul administration not to take part in the Saudi Arabia meeting if the Taliban did not agree to meet the Afghan government’s delegation.

“The peace council has asked the government to stay away from the Saudi-brokered talks until Taliban assure participation in direct talks with Afghan negotiators,” BBC Pashto quoted the HPC spokesman as telling the media in Kabul.

Taliban and the US officials started meetings in Qatar in July last year when US Deputy Secretary of State Alice Wells met Taliban political envoys that was followed by two rounds in Qatar in October and November with the US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad.

Another round was held in Abu Dhabi on December 17-18. However, both sides have not reached any agreement and Taliban officials are hopeful of progress on certain issued, particularly the exchange of prisoners.

Published in Daily Times, January 7^th 2019