Kabul wants Berlin to engage more actively in Afghan conflict settlement in the hope to push the stalled peace process forward, Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Idrees Zaman said on Wednesday
KABUL (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th June, 2019) Kabul wants Berlin to engage more actively in Afghan conflict settlement in the hope to push the stalled peace process forward, Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Idrees Zaman said on Wednesday.Berlin's Special Representative for Afghanistan Markus Potzel is currently on a visit to Kabul. Delivering a speech in the Afghan capital, he earlier expressed regret that the Taliban-US talks had so far failed to produce results.
"We want to expand Germany's role in Afghan peace process, German envoy is here in Kabul and will visit regional countries and then will also visit Qatar," Zaman said.
The statement comes as US Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad visits Afghanistan and meets with government officials, politicians in the run-up to his talks with the Taliban later in June.
The Afghan High Peace Council (HPC), appointed by the government in charge of talks with the Taliban, meanwhile, has said that the talks must be held with the participation of Kabul.
"Afghan government must be side of talks with Taliban, HPC represents government so the talks must happen through us," HPC spokesman Ghafoor Ahmad Jawed said.
As Washington is involved in talks with the Taliban in Qatar, negotiating US troops withdrawal in exchange for Taliban's guarantees that Afghan soil will not be used to harbor members of the al-Qaeda terror group (banned in Russia), Berlin also maintains own contacts with the Taliban.
Most recently in May, Potzel met with the head of the Taliban's Political Office in Qatar and the movement's co-founder, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in Doha. According to the Taliban, the sides discussed ways to bring peace to Afghanistan and Germany's efforts in this regard.
