Intra-Afghan Conference in Qatar Aims to Bring Afghans Together - Taliban

KABUL (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd July, 2019) The upcoming intra-Afghan dialogue conference is aimed at bringing the Afghans together, and is should not be regarded as full-fledged negotiations, a spokesman for the Taliban movement told Sputnik on Wednesday.

Germany and Qatar will co-sponsor the conference in Doha on July 7 and July 8.

"Some members of our Qatar office will attend the conference to discuss the situation in the country and bring the sides closer together ... This is a preparation for direct peace talks if they take place, and we are trying to get to know each other's ideas and thoughts," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

In turn, a former Taliban official told Sputnik that this would be a "low-level" conference in comparison to the intra-Afghan conferences held in Moscow.

"This conference is a low-level one. The Taliban have refused to let presidential candidates, their deputies and [former] President [Hamid] Karzai to attend the conference ... The conference will not be a decision-making one," Akbar Agha said.

A list of conference participants obtained by Sputnik shows that 30 Afghan politicians, most of whom are not well-known, are invited to attend the conference. Karzai's Chief of Staff Abdul Karim Khurram confirmed the authenticity of the list to Sputnik.

Afghanistan has long been suffering from an unstable security situation. The government has been fighting the Taliban movement, which has been waging a war against Kabul for almost two decades, and the Islamic State terrorist group (banned in Russia), which has been operating in Afghanistan since 2015.