MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th October, 2019) Envoys from Pakistan, China, Russia and the United States "categorically" agreed at Afghan consultations in Moscow on Friday that the US-Taliban talks should be resumed, Pakistani Additional Foreign Secretary Muhemmed Aejaz told Sputnik.
"The forum has been supportive of this and we are hopeful that it [talks] restarts as soon as possible ... If you look at the joint statement it says very categorically [that the talks should be renewed] and of course the US side was part of it [joint statement]," the senior diplomat, who headed the Pakistani delegation, said in an interview.
US President Donald Trump broke off in September after a US soldier was killed in a Taliban-claimed bomb blast in Kabul. The Pakistani diplomat said it would only be natural for the IS-Taliban talks to continue after so much understanding had been reached and "a lot of effort has been put in it."
"There is a general hope that it needs to be restarted because the progress that has been achieved after painstaking efforts by the two sides - the US and the Taliban - in nine rounds of talks is something very important," Aejaz said.
He added that the four participants of Moscow talks had reaffirmed their commitment to a peaceful solution for the decades-old conflict in Afghanistan.
"I can say that there is consensus among all the four parties that the only way is a peaceful solution and there is a need to expedite the efforts to reach it early rather than late," Muhemmed Aejaz said.
Moscow has hosted several rounds of consultations on Afghan peace in past years. The recent round was attended by the US special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, who headed the US delegation to Doha for meetings with the Qatar-based political office of the Taliban movement.
