The militant group emphasised a hardline stance on talks aimed at ending its 14-year insurgency, ruling out negotiations until Taliban preconditions were met. “Before any official talks, we want names of our mujahedeen to be removed from United Nations and USA blacklists and all bounties on their heads be cancelled”, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said, listing the group’s demands at the Qatar conference. The conditions include the removal of Taliban from UN blacklist, permission from the UN Security Council for the freedom of mobility for the Taliban leaders and cancellation of the bill demanding the freezing of Taliban leaders’ assets.
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These were “among the preliminary steps needed for peace”, the Taliban said in a statement.
Stanekzai insisted that these demands must be met before starting the peace process to ensure “feasible” progress towards peace.
Anwar Ahady, a former minister of finance taking part in the Doha talks, said the Taliban had not yet shown any willingness to engage in direct talks.
Members of the Taliban have lived in Qatar for years and briefly opened a political office there in 2013.
The Afghan Taliban will send representatives to a conference organized by an global crisis group that will discuss resolving the war in Afghanistan, the group said in a statement on Friday.
Along with another popular privately-owned station, 1 TV, Tolo was threatened by the Taleban in October following the broadcast of reports on the insurgents’ activities in the northern city of Kunduz, which the Taleban held for three days from late September. Mansoor was Omar’s deputy and took over when his death was revealed, said Nazar Mohammad Mutmaeen, another independent political analyst. “We’ve said many, many times that no one suffers more from terrorism than the people of Pakistan, the Government of Pakistan, and we’re committed to working with them to address how we can combat these terrorist threat, whether it’s ISS or other groups that are active still in Pakistan, rather, going forward”, he said.
Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States met last week to lay the ground for a negotiated end to the war and called for the Taliban to rejoin the peace process.
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Calling itself the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”, the group added that it wanted good relations with the world “on the basis of mutual respect”.
