Hectic parleys underway all around for ‘inclusive’ Afghan government
KABUL/DOHA: A group of senior leaders in Afghanistan is seeking to take charge of talks with the Taliban around the formation of a new government after the militants seized control of the country, with a delegation set to travel to Doha, Qatar.
Some bigger powers including China and Russia have indicated they are engaging with the Taliban, while holding fire on recognising the group as the new leadership of Afghanistan.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Moscow supports “inclusive” political dialogue in Afghanistan as the Taliban forms a new government after completing its military takeover.
“We support the beginning of an inclusive national dialogue with the participation of all of Afghanistan’s political, ethnic and religious groups,” Lavrov said in comments aired by Russian state TV.
Taliban officials have said they want to create a unified government, even as they also talk of establishing an Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan. There are signs in some parts of the country already that the Taliban group is reimposing fundamentalism, including banning women from work.
Meanwhile, senior Taliban leader Amir Khan Muttaqi is said to be in the Afghan capital negotiating with Kabul’s political leadership, including Abdullah Abdullah, who once headed the country’s negotiating council, and former President Hamid Karzai.
That is according to an official familiar with the talks and who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the media.
Muttaqi was a higher education minister when the Taliban last ruled and he began making contacts with Afghan political leaders even before Afghan President Ashraf Ghani secretly slipped away from the presidential palace on the weekend, leaving a devastating vacuum that Taliban who were surrounding the city strode in to fill.
The official says the talks underway in the Afghan capital are aimed at bringing other nonTaliban leaders into the government that Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen has said will be an “inclusive Afghan government”.