KABUL (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th July, 2019) The Taliban movement said Sunday it wanted the Afghan government to participate in the intra-Afghan talks as only as a political movement.
On Saturday, the newly appointed Afghan Minister for Peace Abdul Salam Rahimi said that the first-ever meeting of the country's government with the Taliban movement will start within two weeks in a European capital. Earlier in the day, he said that a 15-member delegation of the government will be formed within few days.
"After timetable for the withdrawal of the foreign troops is announced, we will hold negotiations with the Afghan team, which represents the entire political movements, with Kabul administration participating not as a government, but as a political movement," Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said on Twitter.
US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad, meanwhile, said on Sunday that the intra-Afghan negotiations would happen only after the United States concluded its own deal with the Taliban movement. Washington also wants the peace deal signed before September since the Afghan authorities will hold a presidential election on September 28.
Although the sides are preparing for the upcoming talks, the security situation in Afghanistan remains tense. The peace minister noted in this regard that the increasing violence ahead of the peace talks did not meet the demands of the Afghan people.
Afghanistan has been suffering from an unstable political, social and security situation due to the activity of the Taliban movement and the Islamic State terrorist group (banned in Russia) for decades. The insurgency groups control or contest almost half of the country.
