Iran hosts Afghan Taliban leader amid stalled Qatar peace dialogue

Iran has hosted the political leader of Afghanistan’s Taliban during the past week, offering Tehran’s own help as a mediator in peace talks between the insurgents and the Afghan government that have become stalled in Qatar.

Shi’ite Muslim Iran has been a foe of the hard- line Sunni Muslim Taliban for decades, but has been openly meeting with Taliban leaders for the past few years as the US has started negotiating the exit of its troops from Afghanistan.

Washington has accused Iran in the past of providing covert aid to Taliban fighters against US forces.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad

Javad Zarif met Taliban political chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Tehran, and told him that Washington was not a “good mediator” for the conflict, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported on Sunday.

Iran supports an inclusive Afghan government that would include all ethnic groups and sects, Zarif was quoted as saying.

“Political decisions cannot be made in a vacuum,” he said.

Taliban spokesperson Mohammad Naeem said on Twitter that the meetings had taken place “in a good atmosphere.”

“The situations in Afghanistan, Intra- Afghan negotiations, the full implementation of the Doha agreement and Afghanistan’s and region’s need [ for] peace were discussed,” he added.

The US reached an agreement in 2020 with the insurgents at negotiations in the Qatari capital to withdraw troops that have been in Afghanistan since 2001.

More recently, the Taliban and the Afghan government have been negotiating in Qatar to reach a peace deal.

Those talks resumed in January after an almost month- long break, but negotiators and diplomats say there has since been little progress.

Reuters reported on Sunday that some NATO troops are likely to stay in Afghanistan beyond the deadline, which was set in 2020, of May 2021, as the Western alliance does not believe the withdrawal conditions have been met.

New US President Joe Biden is expected to take a close look at the withdrawal agreement negotiated under his predecessor Donald Trump.