Daesh Trying to Expand Presence in Afghanistan: Obama

President Barack Obama met with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in Washington, where the two leaders expressed their shared commitment to confronting the Islamic State group and the global refugee crisis.

Obama and Renzi emphasized the collaboration between their two countries in countering the Islamic State group and addressing the refugee crisis, both areas where Italy has been particularly affected.

“As ISIL tries to expand its presence in Afghanistan, Italy continues to play a vital role is we train and assist Afghan forces and support Afghan development,” said President Barack Obama.

This comes as The Taliban and representatives of the Afghan government have restarted secret talks in the Gulf state of Qatar, sources said.

But in respond to the question of Ariananews reporter about US role in this process, Mark Toner, deputy spokesman of US Department of State refused to comment regarding the issue.

“Of course, the stories that emerged overnight about renewed peace talks. I’m not going to speak about what our role may or may not be with regard to this new initiative. But as we made clear before, we believe that a peace accord is really the primary or the only pathway to ensuring peace and stability long term in Afghanistan. So we have supported and continue to support an Afghan-led, an Afghan-owned process for negotiated resolution to the conflict there. And we’re committed to promoting that as much as we can,” said Mark Toner, deputy spokesman of US Department of State.

Mark Toner has also noted about US efforts on pressing Pakistan to destroy safe havens in its soil.

“As much as regional dynamics play into any country’s domestic situation, there’s an element of truth to that, which is why we’re always working hard to push Pakistan to go after those terrorist groups that seek safe haven on their soil and territory, rather. But our goal is to continue to support the Afghan military as it steps up its fight against the Taliban and to support the Afghan Government as it pushes much-needed reforms in the economy and the democratic system. And then ultimately, as we’ve said, we do support an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process,” Toner added.

The spokesman of Afghanistan National Security Council stressed that reaching to a permanent peace is one of the main goals of the government.

Military analysts have considered the new talks between Taliban-governemnt is Taliban’s another test against the government.

Reported by Nazira Karimi from Washington