Afghanistan Times
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AT Monitoring Desk-KABUL: Moscow has accused the United States for being reluctant and ignorance to the offer to broker peace negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban insurgents, it has been reported.
The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed its readiness to join hand and help Washington to coordinate the Afghan peace process.
The Afghan government all the time said that peace talks with the Taliban would be Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace and reconciliation process.
“We support every measure by any countries for the peace in Afghanistan, but the peace talks will be led by Afghans,” Omid Maisam, deputy spokesman of the Executive Office said.
The United States has also informed Russia that Afghans will led the peace talks with Taliban.
“Russia uses Taliban for its own interest and U.S. does not want Russia’s involvement in these talks,” said Dawood Asas, former adviser of Chief Executive.
Russia has offered to host direct talks between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban as it firmly supported an early start to direct talks “in the interest of ending a fratricidal civil war” and that it was “ready to provide an appropriate platform”.
The initiative reflects Moscow’s concerns that Afghanistan might become a new staging ground for Central Asian, and fighters pushed out of Syria and Iraq after the defeat of ISIS in the region. Moscow claims such a scenario could destabilize Russia’s Central Asian neighbors and threaten its own security.
Despite having fought the Taliban in the 1979-89 Afghanistan war in the Soviet era, Moscow now advocates engagement because the militant group it not considered to have ambitions beyond Afghanistan, in contrast to ISIS.
