Daily Times

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who heads the Taliban headquarters in Qatar, held talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Tehran on Sunday amid uncertain fate of negotiations among Afghans.

The Iranian state news agency quoted Zarif as saying that Iran is ready to facilitate dialog among Taliban, Afghan government, and other Afghan groups and hoped that with the restoration of peace, the pretext for occupation will come to an end in Afghanistan.

Najia Anwari, a spokesperson for Afghan Ministry for Peace, said on Saturday that the Taliban representatives have not yet returned to the negotiations, blaming them for a stalemate in the process. The Taliban have not responded to Anwari’s remarks. The Taliban political representatives have travelled to Tehran and Moscow to apprise leaders of the two countries of the emerging situation after the US and NATO hinted at backing out of the pull-out plan. The Taliban leaders are seeking support of countries like Russia and Iran that seemed difficult, as all countries favour reduction in violence that could lead to a ceasefire. The Taliban have rejected ceasefire calls and this seems difficult due to a deadlock in intra-Afghan negotiations.

Zarif told the Taliban delegation that political decisions cannot happen in a vacuum and that formation of an all-inclusive government should happen in a participatory process and with taking into account the structures, institutions, and basic laws, such as the constitution, according to an IRNA report. He hoped that the pains of the people of Afghanistan will come to an end and peace will be restored as soon as possible, adding the “good people of Afghanistan have been oppressed and the occupation has severely harmed them.”

The Taliban envoys gave a report of the peace process and Afghan-Afghan talks, and stressed that the relations between Iran and Afghanistan have always been based on friendship and good-neighbourliness, hoping that restoration of peace will expand the ties more than before. Referring to the destructive role of Daesh (ISIS) in Afghanistan and the region, Mullah Baradar expressed happiness with the intra-Afghan talks, adding that the formation of an all-inclusive government with all the ethnicities and political groups in Afghanistan is a necessity for the establishment of peace in Afghanistan. The European missions in Afghanistan and the US on Sunday issued a statement on the continuation of assassinations, kidnappings and destruction of vital infrastructure, blaming the Taliban for most of the attacks.

Meanwhile, the Taliban have urged the Biden administration to implement the Doha agreement as there is no military solution to the Afghan problem.

The commentary “New US administration and the Afghan problem” on the Taliban official website emphasized that the manifest conclusion of the past two-decade experience is that the Afghan issue has no military solution. Four senior NATO officials had said that international troops plan to stay in Afghanistan beyond the May deadline, a move that could escalate tensions with the Taliban demanding full withdrawal. “There will be no full withdrawal by allies by April-end,” one of the officials told Reuters.

“Conditions have not been met,” he said, on condition of anonymity, because of the sensitivity of the matter. “And with the new US administration, there will be tweaks in the policy, the sense of hasty withdrawal which was prevalent will be addressed and we could see a much more calculated exit strategy.”