Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

The longest-ever peace dialogues between the Taliban and the United States to put an end to Afghanistan’s 17-year-old war was concluded on Tuesday night in Qatar, with both the sides hailing the progress been made during peace talks.

According to Dawn news reports, US special representative for Afghan peace reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad, in a tweet, wrote that two weeks of peace talks has produced two drafts agreements between the US government and the militants over a “withdrawal timeline and effective counterterrorism measures”.

Khalilzad has said he would visit Washington and hold a meeting with the concerned parties, including the Afghanistan government, which have not taken part in 13-day peace talks held in Doha, Qatar.

Zalmay wrote: “The conditions for #peace have improved,” adding, “It’s clear all sides want to end the war. Despite ups and downs, we kept things on track and made real strides.”

A statement issued by the Taliban stated “progress was achieved” over both of the issues. It has noted that no ceasefire agreement has been reached, nor even any deal for it to speak to the government of Afghanistan,

The statement read, “For now, both sides will deliberate over the achieved progress, share it with their respective leaderships and prepare for the upcoming meeting, the date of which shall be set by both negotiation teams.”

The Taliban officials said the main sticking point remained when US forces would withdraw, and another sticking point would be a demand from America that the Taliban guarantee Afghanistan would never again host militants that would launch an attack against it.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *