Afghanistan Times
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KABUL: Acting Minister of Defense, Asadullah Khalid said that Taliban has intensified violence to gain privileges in the intra-Afghan negotiations. He made the remarks on Sunday in a gathering in eastern Laghman province.
“Our negotiation team was ready to go to Qatar several days ago,” he said. “The delegation may go today (Sunday), but there is still no change in war and it has been even intensified.” He didn’t name a specific country but said that the order to intensify violence to the Taliban has been given from the other side of the Durand Line.
Khalid said that Afghan government wants peace and that is why it has accepted some restraints in talks with the militants. But he didn’t specify which kind of restrictions had been observed by Kabul.
He said that Afghan security forces maintained a defensive position to lay out a sustainable peace in the country.
Khalid assured that Afghanistan would not lose any areas to the Taliban. The government of Afghanistan said that all hurdles on the path to the intra-Afghan negotiations were removed and that the Taliban was not ready to sit in talks with the government delegation.
The ministry of defense in a statement said on Sunday that at least 25 Taliban fighters were killed in clashes with the Afghan security forces across the country within the past 24 hours.
