Afghanistan Times
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Peace talks are gaining momentum as the Taliban group showed willingness to hold talks with the US officials in Saudi Arabia in January next year to restore talks that remained incomplete in Abu Dhabi. However, the obscurity is that they dismissed Afghanistan’s peace talk’s offer. Once again the Taliban insurgents showed unwillingness to set in talks directly with the Afghan government while they group is enthusiastically willing to meet US officials to further peace efforts. Moreover, the US Special Envoy for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad, leading the USG effort to facilitate dialogue and negotiations that will bring peace to Afghanistan, has been making all-out efforts to make possible face-to-face meeting of Taliban representatives with the Afghan government. When that will happen no one knows, at least not in the upcoming peace meeting in Saudi Arabia. Recently, representatives from the Taliban, the United States and some regional countries held talks in the United Arab Emirates to end the 17-year war in Afghanistan. That too ended with no tangible results and surely all round of talks sans Afghan government inclusion would be ineffective. Trump’s envoy is testing all channels with the Taliban in a bid to lunch peace talks, but effort is to facilitate intra-Afghan dialogue. Persisting over their unwise standpoint of not holding talks with the Afghan government could not only fragile US efforts, but the Taliban group could derail the entire process that may have pitfall consequences for them. The introducing of two military veterans and anti-Taliban faces in key security sectors is a simple example, showing the level of frustration within National Unity Government over the wrong stance of the Taliban group who time and again rejected talks with the Afghan negotiating team. Amrullah Saleh introduced as Interior Minister and Asadullah Khaled as Defense—the two patriotic sons of this soil. They pledged to be selfless and altruistic servants of the Afghan masses and merciless hunters of the enemies and criminals. Their appointments are definitely due to Taliban’s steady refusal to talk with Afghan government as a tit-for-tat response. But still there is chance for ending the long-standing Afghan conflict through a comprehensive dialogue and that into framework of intra-Afghan.
