Taleban leaders brief Pakistan about talks with Afghan govt
ISLAMABAD — Three senior Taleban members travelled to Pakistan this week and held a series of meetings with Pakistani officials in Islamabad, mainly to brief them about the recent talks held in Qatar between the Taleban and Kabul, a senior Taleban official, an Afghan diplomat and a Pakistani official said on Saturday.
The Afghan ambassador to Pakistan, Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal, said he was aware of the meetings but refused to offer details. According to a senior Taleban official, the Taleban who were sent to Pakistan were Mullah Salam Hanifi and Mullah Jan Mohammed, both former ministers in the Taleban government, and Maulvi Shahabuddin Dilawar, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
A senior Pakistani security official confirmed the latest meetings between the Taleban and Pakistani authorities, saying Islamabad is playing its role to ensure peace in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Pakistan arranged the first ever face-to-face talks between Kabul and the Taleban in 2015, but the peace process broke down after the Afghan government announced the death years earlier of the Taleban’s leader Mullah Omar.
The latest development came after Taleban and Afghan government officials held new secret talks in Qatar aimed at restarting peace negotiations to end the country’s long war. Pakistan was not involved in the talks and the Taleban said Pakistan was not aware of them until they were over.
Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani, angered by a series of attacks in Kabul he blamed on Taleban living in Pakistan, said he no longer wanted Pakistan involved in negotiations.
The former head of the Taleban’s Doha office, Mohammed Tayyab Agha, sent a letter sent this month to the Taleban’s new leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, urging the movement leaders to leave Pakistan and break ties with Islamabad. The Afghan government and the United States have accused Pakistan of harbouring the Taleban, including its fiercest faction, the Haqqani Network, blamed for some of the worst attacks, particularly in Kabul.
Agha’s Pashtu language letter was
We will keep making efforts to facilitate talks between Kabul and the taleban, as we did in July 2015, but the world knows who scuttled the peace process at the time Pakistani security official
given to Radio Free Europe’s Pashtulanguage Mashaal Radio on Thursday, after Akhundzada asked Agha to return to the Doha office.
In the letter, Agha said the Taleban leaving Pakistan would prevent Pakistan from interfering and would also benefit Pakistan.
Agha’s letter also urged the Taleban to drop reference to the Doha office as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and refer to the Taleban as a movement instead.
Agha also said Akhundzada should drop the title Amir-ul-Momineen which had been adopted by Mullah Omar.