The atmosphere at the meeting on Afghanistan in Moscow was friendly, the delegations of the Taliban movement and Afghanistan's High Peace Council did not exchange any negative words, the spokesman for the council, Ihsan Taheri, told Sputnik.
KABUL (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th December, 2018) The atmosphere at the meeting on Afghanistan in Moscow was friendly, the delegations of the Taliban movement and Afghanistan's High Peace Council did not exchange any negative words, the spokesman for the council, Ihsan Taheri, told Sputnik.
The council was set up by former Afghan leader Hamid Karzai to hold talks with the Taliban. The Afghan Foreign Ministry said the group's delegation at Moscow talks on November 9 did not represent the government, but expressed hope the meeting might lead to direct talks between the Taliban and Kabul.
"At the end of the conference, of course, the situation was very friendly, the conference environment that included for the first time the Taliban movement delegation [was friendly]. We sat in front of them, we discussed at the tea break sessions with them ... There was no kind of negative words said to each other ... Nothing negative," Taheri said.
The council representative noted the meeting became yet another important step in the Afghan settlement process. According to Taheri, the meeting showed that the talk of the country's government and the Taliban without intermediaries was possible in the near future.
"That's a positive sign. And we thank the regional countries and the Russian Federation, the Russian government for hosting us," Taheri said.
The council's spokesman added that the group had asked the conference participants to support the launch of the direct talks and to guarantee that all facilitation of the dialogue would be in line with the decisions taken as the result of the Kabul Process, the Tashkent Conference on Afghanistan and international meetings of ulamas � influential Islamic scholars.
Taheri stressed that any steps facilitating the peace process should be agreed upon with the Afghan government.
