Russia backs plan to have Taliban on board
MOSCOW: Russia said on Friday it backed the Taliban’s integration into a future interim government in Afghanistan, as global powers ramped up efforts to secure a peace deal and end decades of war.
The foreign ministry’s comments come as a May deadline looms for the US to end its twodecade military involvement in the ravaged country.
Washington has encouraged the Afghan leadership to work towards establishing an “inclusive” government and proposed talks with the Taliban to secure a peace accord.
“The formation of an interim inclusive administration would be a logical solution to the problem of integrating the Taliban into the peaceful political life of Afghanistan,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters ahead of talks next week in Moscow.
But she added that the decision should be made “by the Afghans themselves and should be resolved during negotiations on national reconciliation”.
US President Joe Biden is wrapping up a review on whether to stick to an agreement with the Taliban negotiated by his predecessor Donald Trump who wanted to pull out the final US troops from Afghanistan by
May. The Doha Accord signed in the Qatari capital last year underscored Trump’s desire to end long-running US military involvement. But the Biden administration has signalled that America wants to take a hard look at Trump’s deal and its repercussions for Afghanistan and regional stability.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken wrote a letter to Afghan leaders encouraging them to consider a “new, inclusive government”. He also proposed that talks take place within weeks in Turkey to seal a comprehensive peace deal with the Taliban.
Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Ankara was ready to host such a meeting in
April. “Both the Taliban and the negotiation delegation, meaning the government side, had asked us to host such a meeting before,” Cavusoglu said.
“We will do this (meeting) in coordination with brotherly Qatar,” he added in reference to a separate rounds of talks staged in Doha.
The scheduled US withdrawal is being complicated by a new surge in fighting and concern that a speedy exit may only unleash further chaos. Blinken’s letter to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said that US feared the “security situation will worsen and the Taliban could make rapid territorial gains” if the US suddenly withdrew.