DM Monitoring
KABUL: The Taliban plan to present a written peace proposal to the Afghan government as soon as next month, a spokesman for the group has said even as its fighters make major territorial gains in the breach left by departing foreign forces.
Hundreds of Afghan security force members have fled into neighbouring Tajikistan in the face of Taliban advances since the United States vacated its main Afghan base, centrepiece of US and NATO might for almost two decades in the country, as part of a plan to withdraw all foreign troops by September 11. While the transfer of Bagram airbase to the Afghan army added momentum to a Taliban drive to seize control over new districts, Taliban leaders renewed the long-stalled talks with Afghan government envoys in Qatar’s capital Doha last week.
“The peace talks and process will be accelerated in the coming days and they are expected to enter an important stage, naturally it will be about peace plans,” Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters news agency on Monday. “Possibly it will take a month to reach that stage when both sides will share their written peace plan,” he said, adding that the latest round of talks was at a critical juncture.
“Although we (Taliban) have the upper hand on the battlefield, we are very serious about talks and dialogue.”
The upsurge in fighting and the flight of thousands of members of the tattered Afghan security forces have raised grave doubt about the US-backed peace negotiations, which began last year under then-President Donald Trump’s administration. Responding to a request for comment on the Taliban representative’s remarks, a spokesperson for the US State Department said a negotiated settlement was the only way to end 40 years of war in Afghanistan.
“We urge the sides to engage in serious negotiations to determine a political road map for Afghanistan’s future that leads to a just and durable settlement,” the official said. “The world will not accept the imposition by force of a government in Afghanistan,” the official added. “Legitimacy and assistance for any Afghan government can only be possible if that government has a basic respect for human rights.”
Western security officials said insurgent forces have captured more than 100 districts but the Taliban say they have control of more than 200 districts in 34 provinces comprising over half the war-torn country. On Sunday, more than 1,000 Afghan security personnel retreated across the northern border into Tajikistan after Taliban advances, the Tajik border guard service said, while dozens of others were captured by the insurgents.
Diplomats overseeing the intra-Afghan talks have repeatedly sought neighbouring Pakistan’s help to convince Taliban leaders to offer a written peace plan even if it took a maximalist line, such as the restoration of hardline Islamist rule reminiscent of the group’s 1996-2001 period in power. Last month, the European Union’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Tomas Niklasson, said time was running out and that a written proposal would be a sign of successful Pakistani leverage over the Taliban. Najia Anwari, spokesperson for Afghanistan’s Ministry for Peace Affairs, confirmed that intra-Afghan talks had resumed and said its representatives were “very happy” that Taliban envoys were rejecting the process outright.
