Pakistan has invited the Taliban Islamist movement to hold negotiations on the progress reached in the settlement of the Afghan conflict, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday
NEW DELHI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd October, 2019) Pakistan has invited the Taliban Islamist movement to hold negotiations on the progress reached in the settlement of the Afghan conflict, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.Earlier in the day, a Taliban spokesman said that a high-level Taliban delegation was due to visit Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, on Wednesday as part of its tour that includes Russia, China and Iran after the group's peace talks with the United States.
"Pakistan has extended an invitation to Taliban Political Commission (TPC) in Doha for a visit. The visit would provide the opportunity to review the progress made under US-Taliban peace talks so far, and discuss the possibilities of resuming the paused political settlement process in Afghanistan. Accordingly a Taliban delegation is scheduled to visit Islamabad," the ministry said in a statement.
The agenda of the talks between the TPC and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi is currently being finalized.
The US and the Taliban have for nearly a year been attempting to negotiate a peace deal that would ensure the withdrawal of foreign troops in exchange for the movement's guarantee that the country will not become a safe haven for terrorists. The talks, however, have excluded the Afghan government, as the Taliban considers it to be a US puppet. The latest round of talks in Doha finished on September 1. Khalilzad said that Washington and the Taliban were "on the threshold of an agreement."
On September 7, following an explosion in Kabul, US President Donald Trump said via Twitter that he canceled plans to hold secret Camp David talks with the Taliban leadership and Afghan leaders that were scheduled for the next day.
