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Afghan peace talks launched in Qatar

July 8, 2019 at 1:13 pm

The Qatari Minister of Foreign Affairs’ Special Envoy for Counterterrorism and Mediation in Conflict Resolution, Mutlaq Bin Majed Al-Qahtani, announced that the intra-Afghan summit started in Doha yesterday sponsored by Doha.

Al-Qahtani said the summit aims to “push the various Afghan parties to agree on a road map for the upcoming direct negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban movement as well as the main actors in Afghanistan to resolve the Afghan crisis.”

He expressed hope that a final peace agreement in Afghanistan could be reached before the end of this year.

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In what he described was a “major achievement”, about 60 Afghan officials, including representatives of the Afghan government, members of the Taliban’s political bureau, representatives of the political parties, women and young people, as well as representatives of the civil society organisations, attended the conference.

Al-Qahtani explained that the Qatari mediation efforts have resulted in the beginning of serious negotiations between Washington and the Taliban movement since the start of the year, adding that the two parties have made progress in the four points being negotiated, namely, guaranteeing not to use Afghan land against the United States and its allies, the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan, the intra-Afghan dialogue and the ceasefire.

“We are making progress in the third axis, the intra-Afghan dialogue followed by the negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban movement,” he added.