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Envoys from the Afghan government and the Taliban declared in a joint declaration on Sunday that they would assemble again and prepare to advance up peace talks after two days of unconvincing talks in Doha.
The negotiators from rival sides, who have been in Doha since Saturday, said ‘the two parties are dedicated to continuing discussions at a high level until a settlement is reached’.
“We will work to provide humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan,” the statement added.
Alama Jazeera, Osama bin Javaid, reported in Doha: ‘A consequence fought by the parties has been set out where they have finally agreed to talk to each other and to expedite discussions. They acknowledged that the level of meetings would be facilitated.”
Javaid added, however, that the details are not discussed.
For two months now, the two parties have met occasionally in the Qatari capital, but have had little or no significant success. The talks seem to have lost momentum as the Taliban fighters made huge gains on the battlefield.
Senior delegates of the Kabul administration, including the head of the High Council for National Reconciliation, Abdullah Abdullah, rushed in for two days of intense talks as U.S. troops were on the verge of completing their troops’ retirement.
Before the second day of talks, Taliban chief Haibatullah Akhundzada said, “the Islamic Emirate is campaigning hard for a political settlement”, despite the groups’ swift victories on the area.
But the Qatari facilitator of the conversations asserted at the end of the two days that the parties had only agreed to “go to work to prevent civilian casualties”, much less than the previously agreed ceasefire.
‘The two parties have agreed to continue high-level negotiations until a settlement is reached. “For this purpose, they will meet again next week,” said Qatari counter-terrorism envoy Mutlaq al-Qahtani, who is overseeing the Doha talks.
Complex military campaigns
Taliban leader Akhundzada said his group was committed to finding a solution to end the war, but slammed the group’s opponents for ‘wasting time’.
The Taliban have taken advantage of the final stages of the removal of U.S. and another foreign army from Afghanistan to start a series of lightning attacks across the nation.
It is believed that the group has now controlled about half of the country’s 400 districts, several important border crossings, and a series of important provincial capitals.
A spokesman for the Afghan security forces told government fighters had carried out 244 operations and killed 967 “enemy fighters” – including key commanders.