WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th March, 2021) The US State Department hopes this week's Moscow conference on Afghanistan will be productive and welcomes the international effort to resolve the conflict in the country, Deputy Spokesperson Jalina Porter said on Wednesday.
"We're hopeful that the gathering will be productive and we certainly welcome international efforts aimed at accelerating progress towards a just and durable peace in Afghanistan," Porter said in a telephone briefing.
The Moscow summit will take place Thursday and will be attended by delegations from Russia, China, the United States and Pakistan, in addition to the Afghan government and the Taliban.
On Tuesday, a Qatari official told Sputnik that the Moscow conference is expected to build upon the comprehensive intra-Afghan negotiations in the Qatari capital of Doha, and the historic agreement between the United States and the Taliban radical movement in particular.
US-assisted talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban insurgency on ending the war stalled this year amid unabated militant attacks. The United States was poised to withdraw troops from the country by May but now insists that a durable political settlement must first be achieved as the new administration reviews understandings reached by its predecessors.
President Joe Biden told ABC news recently that he is in the middle of making a decision to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by the May 1 deadline, underscoring that it would be a difficult to do so.
