Afghanistan Times
Related Articles
AT News
KABUL: The United States reassures support for a lasting peace in Afghanistan.
The US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in a phone conversation of President Ashraf Ghani, said that Washington supports of the peace that be in the benefit of Afghans as well as a permanent cease fire, the president’s office said Saturday.
Austin also expressed the increased violence especially targeted attacks and condemned it, according to Ghani’s office that said the two sides also spoke on Kabul-Washington relations and the latest peace achievements.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin spoke with His Excellency Ashraf Ghani, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, to reaffirm the United States’ commitment to an enduring US-Afghan partnership, emphasizing the strength of the defense partnership, the US defense department said in a statement.
The statement added that Ghani and Austin discussed shared sacrifices of the two countries and gains made over the last 19 years, emphasizing the current opportunity importance that should be seized for peace.
Separately, Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the reconciliation council accuses Taliban of “causing delay in the peace negotiations with unjustifiable pretexts and unfair reasons”.
He said that Taliban leaders are busy in “tours and marginalized discussions” and their fighters keep fighting and violence against Afghans, instead of focusing on the main points, end of war and violence, killing of Muslims and reducing people’s pains.
Meanwhile, Taliban’s deputy leader and head of the group’s political office Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar has traveled to the neighboring Turkmenistan, according to Mohammad Naeem, Taliban’s political spokesman.
Naeem said that Baradar is to discuss “Kabul-Ashgabat’s ties, trade, political progress and other bilateral issues.”
