UK Prime Minister Theresa May congratulated Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on the occasion of Afghanistan's parliamentary election and said that she welcomed his readiness to engage in peace talks with the Taliban, the UK government said Wednesday.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th November, 2018) UK Prime Minister Theresa May congratulated Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on the occasion of Afghanistan's parliamentary election and said that she welcomed his readiness to engage in peace talks with the Taliban, the UK government said Wednesday.
Afghanistan held its first parliamentary election since 2010 on October 20-21, after postponing the vote for security reasons. Despite Ghani offering the Taliban a role in the political process and a recognition as a political party, the movement attempted to sabotage the vote by launching multiple attacks on the candidates.
"This afternoon the Prime Minister spoke with President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan. The Prime Minister reiterated the UK's firm commitment to Afghanistan and congratulated President Ghani on the achievement of the first Afghan-led and secured election since 2001, praising the courage of the Afghan people who voted," the government press service said.
According to the statement, May and Ghani agreed that the elections marked significant progress in the Afghan settlement.
"The Prime Minister commended President Ghani for his offer to the Taliban of talks without preconditions and the leaders agreed that the prospects for peace are more promising than they have been for a number of years," the press service added.
In March, the international conference on Afghanistan "Peace Process, Security Cooperation and Regional Connectivity," with participation of Ghani, EU Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini, US Under Secretary of State Thomas Shannon, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, adopted a final declaration stating the necessity to start direct negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban as soon as possible without any preliminary conditions.
