U.S. and Chinese officials took part in Tuesday’s meeting as observers, Afghan and Pakistani officials said.
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Previous attempts to engage Kabul and Taliban in negotiations have fallen flat, including the opening of a Taliban office in Qatar in 2013 which was shut down after ex- Afghan President Hamid Karzai sharply criticized the move, arguing that Kabul would only engage in inter-Afghan talks.
He said Pakistan is committed to supporting an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process.
China’s foreign ministry, meanwhile, said their country was ready to play a constructive role in achieving peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan.
The official said army chief General Raheel Sharif was instrumental in bringing the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table.
The attack is the second conducted by the Taliban on North Atlantic Treaty Organisation troops convoy within a week, as one civilian was killed and twelve others were wounded in a similar attack on foreign forces in Kabul on June 30, according to Khama Press.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the United States welcomed the talks as “an important step toward advancing prospects for a credible peace”.
Silent throughout the process has been Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban’s reclusive supreme leader who has not been seen in public since the Taliban was toppled.
Afghanistan, too, is a government with two heads – one led by a Pashtun president, and the other by a coterie of nationalist Afghans including both Pashtun and non-Pashtun leaders. Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s ex- ambassador to Washington told a local TV station that with so many groups in the mix, it is likely each would question what it could gain from peace.
A Taliban statement emailed to media in Kabul by the group’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid did not provide clarity whether the talks have been fully endorsed by the Taliban leadership. Previously, they insisted they could only talk to the Americans who held “real power” in Afghanistan.
“The enemy wants to raise the spirits of its morale-lacking security personnel with such propaganda while publishing false news about the Mujahedeen”, it said in a statement.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Tuesday said in a statement by his office that the talks aim to “change this meeting into a process of continuing talks”, as well as to build trust and to develop the agenda for any negotiations.
Recalling that at last month’s briefing to the UN Security Council he had specifically urged direct talks between the parties, Haysom reiterated the Afghan people’s desire to end the pervasive violence affecting every aspect of their lives.
The talks, hosted by Pakistan in Murree, a hill resort near Islamabad, ended on Wednesday morning.
The White House praised the Pakistani government for helping facilitate the meeting.
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A senior government official familiar with the meeting told The Express Tribune that both sides exchanged a list of demands in an effort to take the process forward.
