Extreme differences between two top Taliban leaders in Afghan Peace Talks

Reuters reported from Taliban and Pakistani sources that the two senior Taliban figures have fierce differences in peace negotiations with Afghan government.

According to two Taliban sources, the Taliban political leader Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, favors negotiation, and battlefield commander Abdul Qayum Zakir, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee opposes talks with Afghanistan.

Reuters added in the report that the Afghan Taliban had signaled willingness to enter talks to end Afghanistan’s long war, senior representatives of the militant group visited Islamabad for secret discussions on the next step forward.

Mansour and Zakir, long-time rivals, met recently to resolve their personal differences, slaughtering sheep for a feast to mark the occasion, according to two Taliban sources.

But Mansour was unable to persuade Zakir to reverse his opposition to direct talks with Kabul, which he sees as “wasting time” because the United States holds real power in Afghanistan, the sources added.

According to two senior insurgent commanders with direct knowledge of the Taliban delegation’s visit to Islamabad, the group then traveled on to Quetta, the southwestern Pakistani city where many Taliban leaders remain in hiding, to brief them on the preliminary discussions.

“They said Pakistani officials had advised them to remove our internal differences before starting formal talks with Kabul,” one of the Taliban commanders said by telephone.

Because Zakir holds sway over several thousand fighters in eastern Afghanistan, it is uncertain any ceasefire could hold were he to continue opposing direct talks with Kabul.

Meanwhile, a number of Afghan analysts believe that Pakistan is able to bring Taliban to the negotiation table with Afghan government.

Earlier, Afghan officials have said that Peace Talks with Taliban will be started without any preconditions.