Washington: US Special Envoy for Afghan Reconciliation Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has both welcomed and criticised the Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada’s Eid message in which calling US to accept its “logical proposals” but Khalilzad said its ‘bombastic tone’ could be a problem.
Khalilzad has said that he would “try to bring the first two parts of our peace framework to closure. We are moving forward. I am optimistic. Success will require other parties to show flexibility”.
According the report in Dawn.com from the special envoy’s statement it appeared that the US was looking towards partially concluding the deal with an agreement on the first two parts. He had earlier insisted that there can be no deal without an agreement on all four elements. “Nothing will be final until we agree on all four issues,” he had said a month ago.
Mr Khalilzad both welcomed and criticised Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada’s Eid message in which he had called on the US to accept the “logical proposals” given by the Taliban for taking peace negotiations forward.
He had said: “The Taliban leader’s Eid statement provides some welcome support for the Afghan peace process and a desire to participate in dialogue with other Afghans and in a final political settlement that will require power sharing. All good things.”
However, he criticised the “bombastic tone” of the statement and warned that it could unnecessarily “complicate and disrupt” progress in peace talks.
While Taliban have been refusing to a US facilitated meeting with Afghan government, they have continued an engagement with Afghan political leaders under a Russian sponsored initiative. They met Afghan politicians for another round of talks from May 28 -30 in Moscow. Both Taliban and Afghan politicians reported progress during the meeting.
In an important endorsement for the Taliban position of troops withdrawal, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey has also called for the complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
US and Taliban have so far held six rounds of talks in Doha and reached a draft agreement under which foreign troops were to leave Afghanistan after assurances from the Taliban that they wouldn’t allow terrorists to use Afghan soil for attacking other countries. However, the dialogue was stalemated on the other two elements of the deal — reduction in violence leading to ceasefire and initiation of intra-Afghan dialogue.
courtesy DAWN.COM
