Taliban delegation visits Uzbekistan to talk peace
A Taliban delegation travelled to Uzbekistan earlier this month to discuss the Afghan peace process and withdrawal of foreign forces, officials said on Sunday, as fighting between insurgents and security forces raged near Kabul.
The meetings in Afghanistan’s northern neighbour follow recent reports that the Taliban sent similar delegations to China, illustrating the group’s rising ambitions to engage in independent talks with foreign governments as momentum for a peace settlement in the country builds.
The head of the Taliban’s political office in Qatar Sher Muhammad Abbas Stanekzai met Uzbek foreign minister Abdul Aziz Kamilov over a four-day period from August 6, and discussed the “prospects of the peace process in Afghanistan”, the Uzbek foreign ministry said in a statement.
The Taliban said in a separate statement they discussed the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan, peace and “future
KABUL:
national projects such as security for railroad and power lines”.
Uzbekistan’s special envoy for Afghanistan Ismatulla Irgashev also attended the meetings, officials said.
The talks follow an earlier trip to Uzbekistan by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in late March.
The move was welcomed by some in Kabul, where pressure is mounting to engage the insurgents and end the nearly 17-yearold war.
The Taliban have continued to push for direct negotiations with the US -- rather than the government in Kabul, which the insurgents see as illegitimate -- but have also attempted to build independent contacts with other governments.
“These kind of meetings are going to continue until the real talks begin,” Sayed Ehsan Taheri, a spokesman for the Afghanistan High Peace Council, told AFP.