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Presidential Citadel denies start of Peace Talks with Taliban
President spokesman made a statement to consider the trip of members of High Peace Council to Qatar was to attend a summit and denied the start of Peace Talks with the armed Taliban group.
Afghan government officials and Taliban militants began two days of meetings on Sunday in the gulf state of Qatar, and for once neither side denied that the sessions were taking place.
Both were also quick to insist that they were not holding peace talks. A statement by the Taliban called the meetings a “research conference,” while Afghan government officials described them as “scientific discussions.”
The closed-door talks hosted by Qatar’s foreign ministry represent a tentative sign of life in the effort to end the devastating 13-year-old war in Afghanistan.
The informal talks, hosted by Qatar’s foreign ministry, came as fighting escalated after the withdrawal of most U.S. and allied troops. The Taliban recently launched an offensive in northern Afghanistan that brought its fighters to the outskirts of Kunduz city, a provincial capital.
According to Reuters, Participants in Sunday’s meeting in Al-Khor, a seaside town north of Doha, emerged from the venue smiling and laughing on Sunday but refused to talk to waiting reporters.
One Taliban participant in the talks told Reuters by telephone late on Sunday that an eight-member Taliban delegation, headed by Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, had held direct dialogue with Afghan officials.
“After the dialogue began, our people gave demands and conditions in written form and … distributed copies among all the participants,” he said on condition of anonymity.
“Then the dialogue started openly, and the Afghan delegation and Qayyum Kochai, uncle of (Afghan) President Ashraf Ghani, demanded we stop our fighting and announce a ceasefire. They called us brothers and advised us to come to Afghanistan and obey the Afghan constitution,” he said.
In the meantime, Afghanistan Wolesi Jirga- the lower house of parliament are said to not believe Pakistan provide facilities for peace talks between Afghan government and Taliban.
They said that Pakistan has always sought to deceive Afghansitan and would never bring Taliban to the negotiation table.
However, Afghan government considers peace one of the top priorities of the government but it had not any achievements in the process so far.
Pakistan has long been seen as an important potential broker of any peace process between the Afghan government and the Taliban, given that many insurgent leaders have found continued shelter there. But the Qatari conference represented an effort by the Taliban to strike out independently of the Pakistanis.
Reported by Ahmad Farshad Saleh
Three road construction projects worth about one billion Afghanis started in capital Kabul on Saturday.
The projects were inaugurated by Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
The projects are: the second phase of Kotal Khairkhane road, the first part of the Shahid square to Qasaba, and the Airport road to Gumruk.
In the inauguration ceremony, Mullah Baradar said that Kabul municipality is working hard to beautify and regulate the city, and people should cooperate with the government in protecting public benefit projects.
He directed the officials of Kabul municipality to complete the mentioned projects on time and with good quality.
The second phase of Kotel Khairkhaneh road is 2.5 kilometers long and 60 meters wide. Thie road will cost 364 million Afghanis and will be completed in 20 months.
The Shahid square-Qasaba road is 1.8 kilometers long and 45 meters wide, which will be built at a cost of 175 million Afghanis in one year.
The Airport-Gumruk road is 2.7 km long and 60 meters wide, which will be completed at a cost of 407 million Afghanis in 20 months.
The projects are funded by Kabul Municipality.
Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu said on Friday that the main threat for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members emanates from Afghanistan where international terrorist groups find shelter due to unstable and indefinite political situation.
Speaking at a meeting of the SCO defense ministers in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana, Shoygu said Washington has stepped up efforts to restore its positions in Central and South Asia that were lost after the withdrawal of coalition troops from Afghanistan, Anadolu Agency reported.
The military chief called “unacceptable” the deployment of the American military infrastructure in the region, arguing that intentions should be regarded as “a direct threat to stability in the SCO space.”
According to him, the US is trying to impose a new security system in the Asia-Pacific region for dominance.
This comes as the Islamic Emirate has repeatedly emphasized that it does not allow anyone to pose threats to any other country from Afghanistan soil.
Recently, Mohammad Yaqub Mujahid, Acting Minister of National Defense Mohammad Yaqub Mujahid said that no destructive groups including Daesh have physical presence in Afghanistan,
In a statement on the occasion of the 32nd anniversary of the victory of the Mujahideen against the then communist government, the Islamic Emirate said that it is a day of freedom of the Afghan nation.
The Islamic Emirate described the coup by People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan on 27th April 1978 as a dark day in history, as a result of which the people of Afghanistan suffered severe human and financial losses.
The statement said that the Afghan nation suffered huge casualties in their 14-year struggle against the thoughts and actions of the communists, as 1.5 million people died and millions more faced various hardships.
“After 20 years of Jihad, our country was freed from another occupation and the Islamic system was established, so the Islamic Emirate will make its utmost efforts so that the fruits of decades of sacrifice and struggle of this nation are not wasted,” the statement said.
“It was the wish of the martyrs to fully implement the Islamic system in the country, and therefore, the Islamic Emirate is trying to facilitate development and prosperity under the shadow of the Islamic system in order to realize the goals of the Afghan people’s jihads,” it added.
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