“The political office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is the only authorised and responsible entity assigned by the Islamic Emirate to carry out talks”, the statement added.
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The first formal peace talks with the Taliban since the start of the war collapsed last year after it was announced that its founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar, who sanctioned the talks, had been dead for two years, throwing the group into disarray.
Representatives close to the Afghan government, including former Afghan interior minister Umar Daudzai and President Ashraf Ghani’s uncle, attended the Doha talks, but actual government representatives were absent, the Afghan foreign ministry said.
“Establishment of official venue for the Islamic Emirate; removal of blacklist and prize list; release of prisoners and ending poisonous propaganda are among the preliminary steps needed for peace”.
Political analyst Waheed Muzhda, who was an official in the Taliban’s 1996-2001 administration, said the conference would not discuss the peace process but would instead focus on “current circumstances in Afghanistan”.
The unofficial talks come as Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States engage in formal discussions aimed at finding a path toward direct talks with the Taliban. That announcement prompted the Taliban to pull out of talks and led to a power struggle within the group over who would represent it.
The Kandahar police chief and strongman of Afghanistan’s southern region, General Abdul Raziq, has linked the success of the Afghan peace talks to the participation of Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor and top leaders of Haqqani network in the coming peace dialogue. He was previously Omar’s deputy.
“We conveyed them to first remove us from the blacklist of the United Nations and allow us to freely travel around the world and then we can think about holding peace talks”, the Taliban member, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. Members of the group have remained in the oil and gas-rich country, however.
The group issued a statement following Pagwash Conference held from 23rd to 25th January in Doha, the capital city of Qatar.
Afghanistan’s Taliban demanded the release of political prisoners as one of the conditions that they said on Sunday would need to be met before they consider rejoining peace talks aimed at ending the 15-year war.
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It said it was committed to “civil activities”, free speech and “women’s rights in the light of Islamic rules, national interests and values”.
