Pakistan hosts Afghan Taleban on peace talks

islamabad — Pakistani officials have hosted seven Taleban leaders in Islamabad to try and press the insurgents into peace talks ahead of a multi-nation meeting in April in Moscow, according to two Taleban officials.

Islamabad has been under international pressure to try and bring Taleban leaders, who have lived in Pakistan since their rule in Afghanistan was overthrown in the 2001 US invasion, into some form of negotiations with Kabul.

However, successive attempts have faltered and failed. Last year Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and the United States met to jumpstart the peace process but that effort faltered after a series of deadly Kabul attacks that Afghanistan blamed on militants hiding in Pakistan. China, Russia and Pakistan are behind the initiative of the April meeting in Moscow. Afghanistan will attend the meeting as will Iran and India. Washington has not said whether it would attend.

The two Taleban officials told AP that the Taleban used the Islamabad gathering, which took place last week, to press their own demands, including that Pakistan free Taleban figures from its jails.

The international community has stepped up efforts to find a peaceful solution to Afghanistan’s protracted war with the Taleban as security across Afghanistan deteriorates and Daesh threatens to expand its foothold in the region.

The Taleban attending the Islamabad meeting were led by Mullah Mohammed Abbas, who took part in direct talks with the Afghan government in July 2015 in Pakistan. Those talks abruptly ended as an announcement emerged that Taleban founder, Mullah Mohammed Omar, had been dead for two years.

Others at the meeting included former Taleban higher education minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi; former vice and virtue minister Mullah Mohammed Turabi; Mullah Saaduddin from the so-called Quetta shura, or council, in Balochistan province and Mullah Daud who represented the socalled Peshawar shura. —