Ashraf Ghani said the Taliban was facing a major test to choose whether they wanted peace or war.
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Islamabad, Mar.6: The peace talks between Afghanistan and the Taliban ran into trouble as the main faction of the insurgent group denied its plans to join the process besides questioning its efficacy.
Afghan officials voiced optimism Sunday that Taliban peace talks would resume “within weeks” even after the insurgents rebuffed calls for dialogue, with analysts dismissing their seemingly tough stance as a bargaining ploy.
On Afghanistan and Pakistan relations, he said that one of the factors of violence is that “Afghanistan and Pakistan have been in an undeclared war”.
Direct peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban militants group has reportedly been postponed for a week or two, a day after Taliban rejected participation in the talks.
Participants hoped that Taliban representatives from the movement’s office in Doha, Qatar, would attend the next meeting, which is scheduled to be held in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
“We reject all such rumors and unequivocally state that the leader of Islamic Emirate has not authorized anyone to participate in this meeting”, a statement said.
The Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG), including Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States, met on February 23 for its fourth session, announcing direct talks between Taliban and Afghan government might take place in the first week of March. It added that fresh American forces have deployed to the battlefield and that Afghan forces have also intensified their operations. The group, which was ousted from power in a US-led military intervention in 2001, has been waging a violent insurgency to topple the Western-backed Afghan government and reestablish a fundamentalist Islamic regime.
Initial peace efforts were jeopardized previous year after Afghanistan’s intelligence agency leaked news of the 2013 death of Taliban founder Mullah Muhammad Omar.
Since the global coalition formally ended its combat mission at the end of 2014 and drew down to a training and advisory mission of about 13,000 troops, the Taliban have been testing government forces, inflicting record casualties and gaining territory.
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Formed in the 1990s, the Taliban seeks to enforce sharia law in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
