Earlier there were reports that the new Taliban chief has rejected United States peace talks through an audio tape purporting to be from Akhundzada.
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The “shura”, or leadership council, was convened in haste after leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed by a USA drone strike in Pakistan on Saturday, presenting the Taliban with their second succession in less than a year.
After the succession of the new amir at the Taliban Shura meeting, Stanikzai is the first Taliban leader to pledge his allegiance to Maulvi Haibatullah.
The Taliban announced Wednesday that an extremist religious scholar with no military experience would take over the jihadist group after a USA drone strike killed its former leader. At the same time, the lack of a unified leadership is keeping the Taliban unable to negotiate, and with the USA assassination exacerbating that, one can not but come to the conclusion that Afghan and U.S. officials aren’t seriously interested in peace talks.
“Mullah Mansour could have convinced the Taliban commanders to engage in peace talks – any other leader can’t”, said Muzhdah.
“The Taliban should seize the opportunity to pursue the only real path for ending this long conflict-joining the Afghan government in a reconciliation process that leads to lasting peace and stability”, the president said in a statement.
He said effective border management was vital for checking the infiltrations across Pak-Afghan border and recalled that SOPs had been finalised with Afghanistan in 2012 urging Afghan government for cooperation. “It shows that the Taliban are keen not to have a new conflict”, said Thomas Ruttig of the Afghanistan Analysts Network.
Mansour’s killing marked a significant shift for Washington, highlighting a new willingness to target Taliban leaders in Pakistan and risk retaliatory attacks against struggling Afghan security forces. He was a close ally of Mansour and was one of his two deputies. He is from Kandahar, in the south of Afghanistan and the heartland of the Taliban.
The Afghan Taliban on Wednesday confirmed the death of its leader Mullah Mohammad Akhtar Mansoor in the airstrike over the weekend in an online statement on Wednesday.
Ruttig said the deputies represented the younger, more militant generation of the organization, which the Taliban was likely seeking to better integrate through their appointments.
Sartaj Aziz emphasised that the drone strike had “damaged” the Afghan peace process and dismissed the impression that a few Taliban persons were a hurdle to negotiations.
“We have conveyed our serious concern to the United States on this issue”, he said.
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Pakistan has always been accused by both Afghanistan and the U.S. of providing shelter and support to some Taliban leaders.
