Afghan Taliban Leader Offers Direct Talks With U.S.

The leader of Afghanistan’s Taliban, Hibatullah Akhundzada, on Tuesday offered direct peace negotiations to the United Sates to end the decades-long conflict in the country.

Akhundzada in his Eid message again justified his group’s military campaign, citing the presence of U.S.-led foreign “occupation forces” in the country.

“The only path to rescuing ourselves from all these calamities is for all American and other occupying forces to leave our country and for an independent, Islamic, intra-Afghan government to take root. Our Jihad began for this exact purpose and in conjunction to our armed Jihad, we have kept the doors of understanding and negotiations open to reach this objective and appointed the Political Office of the Islamic Emirate as the exclusive avenue of activity in this regard,” Hebatullah said.

He declared, “If the American officials truly believe in a peaceful end to the Afghan imbroglio, then they must directly present themselves to the negotiation table so that this tragedy [invasion] the destructive effects of which mainly harm the American and Afghan people can be resolved through talks.”

“The biggest mistake on part of the American officials is that they approach every problem with stubbornness. But force cannot yield results in every case,” said Hibatullah, who was appointed the Taliban new chief after a US drone killed Akhtar Mansour in May 2016.

This comes as the United States has rejected Taliban offer for direct talks and called on the insurgents to talk to the Afghan government.