MOSCOW - Taliban are ready to talk with Afghanistan’s government only after agreeing with the United States on a schedule for the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country, Russian Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov said Monday.
“They said that they would be ready to talk with the Afghan government only after reaching an agreement with the Americans on the schedule for withdrawing all foreign troops from Afghanistan. As a confidence-building measure, the Taliban have preliminarily demanded the release of all political prisoners and the cancellation of anti-Taliban sanctions imposed on them back in 1997,” Kabulov said at a press conference.
The Taliban are ready to take part in the next meeting on Afghanistan in Moscow, Kabulov noted as quoted by Russia’s Sputnik news agency. “Yes. In principle, the Taliban are ready. They really liked it, they are ready to take part,” Kabulov said at a press conference when asked about the prospects for the Taliban’s participation in a new meeting of the Moscow format.
The November 9 meeting of the Moscow format on Afghanistan may be considered a breakthrough, because for the first time the Taliban attended it, which is the first step toward further full-format peace talks, according to Russian Foreign Ministry Second Asian Department Director Zamir Kabulov, who also serves as an envoy for Afghanistan.
“The United States had enough time, 17 years, to do a lot of what it originally intended. But… If you remember, in 2001 the presence of the Taliban in Afghanistan was zero, today the Taliban control more than 60 per cent of the country — this is the presence of America and Nato in Afghanistan. What kind of presence is this, which does not solve the problem, but contributes to its growth? We do not need such leadership,” Kabulov stated.
He contended that the national security interests of Russia and its allies are at stake.
The launch of direct talks between Kabul and the Taliban may be discussed with US Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad during his visit to Russia, Zamir Kabulov noted.
The Russian diplomat added that the Afghan authorities did not intend to send an official delegation to the Moscow-format meeting on the Afghan settlement from the early beginning and sent representatives of the Afghan High Peace Council instead.
“In late October, the Afghan authorities, always requesting direct talks, stated, and it was announced by [Afghan President] Ashraf Ghani in phone talks with Lavrov, that [they] were not ready to send an official delegation to [the Moscow] meeting, but suggested sending a delegation of the Afghan High Peace Council. The organisation is technically considered a non-governmental institution, but its leadership is appointed by the Afghan president,” Kabulov stated.
Dozens of Taliban-US meetings
Members of the Taliban movement informed Moscow about several dozen closed meetings that they had held with representatives of the United States, Kabulov, the Russian president’s special envoy to Afghanistan and director of the Foreign Ministry’s Second Asian Department, said on Monday.
“The Taliban members themselves told us during the meeting that they had had dozens of closed meetings with the US side,” Kabulov told a press conference. He noted that it was a natural process when different countries tried to encourage both the Afghan government and the Taliban to come to the negotiating table without preconditions. “It is normal when influential actors in this field try to consult with both parties, and I do not see anything bad in it,” the diplomat added.
Afghanistan has long been suffering from an unstable security situation. The government has been fighting the Taliban, which has been waging a war against Kabul for almost two decades, and the Islamic State terrorist group (banned in Russia), which has been operating in Afghanistan since 2015.
SPUTNIK
