https://mil.news.sina.com.cn/world/2019-02-08/doc-ihqfskcp3716094.shtml
塔利班称莫斯科会谈非常成功 各方要求美军完全撤离
2019年02月08日 13:50 参考消息网
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参考消息网2月8日报道 外媒称，塔利班2月6日称赞与阿富汗政要们举行的前所未有的会谈“非常成功”，尽管在一些问题上还存在分歧。
据法新社2月6日报道，在为期两天的莫斯科特别会谈上，塔利班领导人与前总统哈米德·卡尔扎伊并肩站立，后者称叛军为“兄弟”，双方同意寻求持久和平。
报道称，没有阿政府官员受邀出席会谈。
塔利班代表团团长谢尔·穆罕默德·阿巴斯·斯塔尼克扎伊与面带微笑的卡尔扎伊，罕见地出现在媒体面前。
斯塔尼克扎伊对记者说：“此次会谈非常成功。”
“我们在许多观点上达成一致。未来，我们能取得进一步成功，最终我们能够达成解决方案。我对此充满希望。我们能实现阿富汗的彻底和平。”他说。
报道指出，各方一致表示支持与美国谈判代表开展的多哈和谈。美国总统特朗普2月5日称和谈是“建设性的”。
各方共同发表的九点声明在外国军队从阿富汗完全撤军问题上达成了一致。
2018年7月7日在阿富汗楠格哈尔省代赫巴拉地区拍摄的美军据点的资料照片。
斯塔尼克扎伊说，撤军时间表“到目前为止尚未确定……但我们正在对此进行谈判”。
另据俄罗斯塔斯社报道，会议组织者称，会议取得了出人意料的、大有希望的成果。
各方协商通过了最终文件。他们共同勾勒了阿富汗的未来轮廓，即一个和平与自由的国家。值得一提的是，与会者呼吁将塔利班从联合国的黑名单中移除，并商定在近期内再度举行会谈。
会谈的组织者是在俄阿富汗侨民的代表，他们先前举办了记者会，公开表示无意谋求在危机调停方面作出最终决定。用他们的话说，重要的是开始对话。他们不止一次强调，会场将不会出现阿富汗政府代表的身影。俄外交部也声明，俄官员不参与，因为外交部并非此次会谈的组织者。
报道指出，按会议既定日程，代表们进行了数小时的讨论和会谈，还出台了联合宣言，这令多数人始料未及。
最知名的与会者、阿富汗前总统卡尔扎伊和塔利班代表团负责人斯塔尼克扎伊都提到，美军从阿富汗领土撤出是中心议题之一。
会谈的主要组织者之一、莫斯科的阿富汗侨民代表内萨尔解释道：“所有各方均认同，对于营造条件以展开和平调停、战胜政治危机而言，外国撤军是必不可少的。然而，对美国军人应以何种方式、在什么期限内离开阿富汗，存在不同看法。”
报道称，外国军人从阿富汗境内撤出是实施和平调停的重要标尺。与会者在共同声明中专辟一条，明言禁止外国干预，但也做好准备，在基础设施重建方面接受国际援助。声明还呼吁将塔利班从联合国的黑名单中移除。
各方商定将定期举行类似形式的会谈，下次的地点预计为卡塔尔首都多哈。
路透社援引一名塔利班官员的话表示，尚未就美军部分撤离阿富汗的时间表与美国政府达成一致，谈判仍在进行中。
此前，俄新社援引参与和谈的一名塔利班官员的话说，华盛顿承诺在4月底前撤出一半驻阿部队。
但是，此报道在莫斯科和谈的最后遭到否认，因为俄新社之前援引的那名塔利班官员阿卜杜勒·萨拉姆·哈纳菲否认曾发表该言论。
他说，并未与美国首席谈判代表扎尔梅·哈利勒扎德达成任何具体协议。哈利勒扎德一直在与塔利班谈判代表见面。
“直到现在，我们也未达成一致。”哈纳菲说。对于在4月撤军一事，他说：“那是我们的渴望，是我们的要求……我们的要求是外国军队尽快撤出。”
The Taliban said the Moscow talks were very successful. The parties demanded that the US military withdraw completely.
February 08, 2019 13:50 Reference Message Network
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Reference News Network reported on February 8 Foreign media said that the Taliban praised the unprecedented talks with Afghan politicians on February 6 "very successful", although there are still some differences.
According to Agence France-Presse reported on February 6, during the two-day special talks in Moscow, the Taliban leaders stood side by side with former President Hamid Karzai, who called the rebels "brothers" and both agreed to seek lasting peace.
The report said that no government officials were invited to attend the talks.
The head of the Taliban delegation, Shel Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai and the smiling Karzai, rarely appeared in the media.
Stanik Zai told reporters: "The talks were very successful."
"We have reached consensus on many points of view. In the future, we can achieve further success, and finally we can reach a solution. I am full of hope. We can achieve complete peace in Afghanistan," he said.
The report pointed out that all parties unanimously expressed support for the Doha peace talks with the US negotiators. US President Trump said on February 5 that the peace talks were "constructive."
The nine-point statement jointly issued by the parties reached an agreement on the complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
A photo of a US military base taken in the Dehbara area of Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, on July 7, 2018. A photo of a US military base taken in the Dehbara area of Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, on July 7, 2018.
Stanikzai said that the timetable for withdrawal is "not yet determined...but we are negotiating this."
According to the Russian Tass news agency, the organizers of the conference said that the meeting had achieved unexpected and promising results.
The parties finally negotiated the adoption of the final document. Together they outline the future of Afghanistan, a country of peace and freedom. It is worth mentioning that the participants called for the removal of the Taliban from the UN blacklist and agreed to hold talks again in the near future.
The organizers of the talks were representatives of Russian Afghan nationals who had previously held a press conference and publicly stated that they had no intention of seeking a final decision on crisis mediation. In their words, it is important to start a conversation. More than once, they stressed that there will be no representatives of the Afghan government at the venue. The Russian Foreign Ministry also stated that Russian officials did not participate because the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was not the organizer of the talks.
The report pointed out that according to the scheduled agenda of the meeting, the delegates conducted several hours of discussions and talks, and also issued a joint declaration, which made most people unexpected.
The most well-known participants, former Afghan President Karzai and the head of the Taliban delegation, Stanick Zhai, all mentioned that the withdrawal of US troops from Afghan territory is one of the central issues.
One of the main organizers of the talks, Nassar, a representative of the Afghan nationals in Moscow, explained: "All parties agree that foreign withdrawal is essential for creating conditions for peaceful mediation and overcoming political crises. However, There are different views on the manner in which US military personnel should leave Afghanistan and in what period."
According to reports, the withdrawal of foreign soldiers from Afghanistan is an important yardstick for the implementation of peaceful mediation. Participants in the joint statement made a special statement, banned from foreign intervention, but were also prepared to receive international assistance in infrastructure reconstruction. The statement also called for the removal of the Taliban from the UN blacklist.
The parties agreed to hold similar forms of talks on a regular basis, and the next location is expected to be Doha, Qatar.
Reuters quoted a Taliban official as saying that it has not yet reached an agreement with the US government on the timetable for the partial withdrawal of the US military from Afghanistan, and negotiations are still in progress.
Earlier, the Russian news agency quoted a Taliban official who participated in the peace talks as saying that Washington promised to withdraw half of the troops stationed in Afghanistan before the end of April.
However, this report was denied at the end of the Moscow peace talks, because the Taliban official Abdul Salam Hanafi, previously quoted by RIA Novosti, denied having made the statement.
He said that he did not reach any specific agreement with the US chief negotiator, Zalme Khalilzad. Khalilzad has been meeting with Taliban negotiators.
"Until now, we have not reached an agreement," Hanafy said. Regarding the withdrawal of troops in April, he said: "That is our desire, our request... Our request is for the foreign troops to withdraw as soon as possible."
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019...oops-leave-afghanistan-1-190206112809013.html
Russia says ready to help Taliban talks on US withdrawal
Offer made after Taliban leaders met with Afghan representatives in Moscow during 'very successful' negotiations.
23 hours ago
Progress has been made with Taliban leaders to end the 17-year, $1 trillion US-led war [Maxim Shemetov/Reuters]
more on Afghanistan
A top Russian diplomat has met with Taliban representatives and expressed Moscow's support for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The meeting came after two days of talks between prominent Afghan figures and Taliban representatives in Moscow and contradictory statements about an immediate US forces pullout from the country.
A senior Taliban official said on Wednesday the United States promised to withdraw half of its troops from Afghanistan by the end of April, but later retracted the assertion.
The head of the Taliban delegation said no time had been fixed for a US withdrawal from the country and negotiations were in progress.
The US' chief negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad also refuted the claim in a tweet.
Zamir Kabulovm, the Russian presidential envoy on Afghanistan, told the RIA Novosti news agency on Thursday that Russia is willing to help talks between the US and the Taliban on the withdrawal of US troops.
It wasn't clear what assistance the Russians would offer.
Kabulov also said Moscow would be willing to support lifting sanctions on the Taliban as long as other UN Security Council members were also on board.
Until now, the US has been at the forefront of negotiations. Since being appointed last September as the US special representative for Afghan reconciliation, Khalilzad has carried out a number of rounds of talks with the Taliban and other regional representatives in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, India, Russia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
Mixed feelings in Afghanistan over US-Taliban talks
The US envoy's most recent talks were in Doha late last month where the two sides met for six days.
Khalilzad told the New York Times that a draft framework was agreed that could eventually turn into an agreement.
"Meetings here were more productive than they have been in the past. We made significant progress on vital issues," he wrote on Twitter.
Washington wants assurances that Afghanistan will not harbour groups that would use the country as a base to launch attacks on the US.
The Taliban want all American troops to withdraw.
In December, there were numerous reports that US President Donald Trump planned to halve the estimated 14,000 US forces in Afghanistan.
In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Trump said any troop pullout would be linked to progress in peace talks.
The Taliban has refused to negotiate directly with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's government, calling it a "puppet" of the West.
Fears a deal with the Taliban will affect Afghan women's rights
No government representatives have been included in any talks with the Taliban, in Moscow, Doha or elsewhere.
'Fruitful' meeting
A top US general said Kabul must be involved in talks if the push for a peace deal is to be successful.
"Ultimately, we need to get to a Taliban-Afghanistan discussion," General Joseph Votel, head of US Central Command, told US legislators.
"Only they will be able to resolve the key issues involved in the dispute."
A number of Ghani's political opponents took part in the two days of meetings in Moscow, including his former national security adviser Hanif Atmar, who plans to run for the presidency in elections scheduled for July.
The head of the Taliban delegation in Moscow, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, called the meeting "fruitful".
"It was very successful. We agreed on many points and I am hopeful that in future we can succeed further, and finally we can reach a solution, we can find a complete peace in Afghanistan," Stanikzai said.
Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai called the discussions "very satisfactory".
Ghani said he had spoken late on Tuesday with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who stressed the importance of "ensuring the centrality of the Afghan government in the peace process".
The Afghan president has vented frustration at being sidelined as his political enemies shared prayers and meals with the Taliban while discussing the future of the country.
The Moscow conference was the Taliban's most significant engagement with Afghan representatives in recent memory.
101 East
Afghanistan: Taliban At The Gates
SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019...-opposition-talks-moscow-190204145837603.html
Kabul 'regrets' Taliban-Afghan opposition talks in Russia
Afghan government criticises Tuesday's Moscow meeting, saying opposition politicians attending 'in order to gain power'.
5 Feb 2019
The Taliban has refused to talk to Ghani's government, which they denounce as a US puppet [Rahmat Gul/AP]
more on Afghanistan
The Afghan government has criticised talks in Russia between the Taliban and opposition figures - including former president Hamid Karzai - as regrettable while politicians attending described the gathering as the continuation of peace efforts.
The discussions starting on Tuesday in Moscow come 10 days after peace negotiations between the United States and the Taliban in Qatar ended with signs of progress towards the withdrawal of thousands of foreign troops from Afghanistan and an end to more than 17 years of war.
Fazel Fazly, the chief adviser to President Ashraf Ghani, expressed "regret" that politicians who previously led Afghanistan's democratic transition were to meet Taliban leaders over two days.
READ MORE
Afghan government says US withdrawal will not affect security
"[They] are ready to bypass these principles and move towards [the principles'] destruction due to differences and being away from power," Fazly said on Twitter.
Ghani's office criticised the meeting saying Afghan politicians attending were doing so "in order to gain power".
Along with Karzai, many of the 38 delegates from Kabul have held prominent government positions. Also on the list are powerful commanders-turned-politicians and former Taliban fighters who reconciled with the Kabul administration.
The Moscow gathering is likely to further isolate Ghani who has been irked by US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad's direct talks with the Taliban, as well as his successive rounds of talks in regional countries.
Push for peace
The Moscow-based Council of Afghan Society, an organisation of the Afghan diaspora in Russia, organised the meeting.
It said the participants will discuss a range of issues, including a ceasefire, ways to support Khalilzad's initiatives and a path to ensure a "powerful and democratic central government" in Afghanistan.
The push for peace comes as the Taliban, thrown out by the US-led forces in 2001, has staged near-daily attacks and is in control of or contesting districts in nearly half the country.
READ MORE
US-Taliban talks stir hope for peace, fears for women's rights
The latest quarterly report by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction showed 53.8 percent of Afghanistan's 407 districts are with the government, covering 63.5 percent of the population. The rest is under Taliban control.
Abdullah Abdullah, the government's chief executive, who addressed reporters in Kabul on Monday, said the Afghan government should be at the centre of any peace talks, adding it "would prefer the Moscow meeting had a different shape".
"[The Taliban] have the mindset that their position will be strengthened as they see that the talks are ongoing in different places," Abdullah said, referring to recent negotiations in Qatar and Moscow, as quoted by Afghan news website ToloNews.
'Unity, sovereignty, progress'
Karzai confirmed his attendance at the talks, saying in a tweet he would carry a message of "peace, unity, sovereignty and progress for all of us".
He replaced the Taliban rule as Afghanistan's first democratically elected leader after the armed group was overthrown by Afghan forces supported by US air power.
Another delegate to the Moscow sessions, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, an influential former national security adviser to Ghani, said they would emphasise the need to include the government in future intra-Afghan discussions.
READ MORE
Profile: Abdul Ghani Baradar, Taliban's political head in Qatar
But he urged the government not to look at the peace process from a "narrow governmental window".
The US has some 14,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led Resolute Support mission and a separate counterterrorism effort largely directed at groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS).
Some 8,000 troops from 38 other countries are
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...y-have-no-plans-to-seize-afghanistan-by-force
Taliban and Afghan groups find common ground in landmark talks
Insurgents attend Moscow peace summit, but Afghan president is excluded
Emma Graham-Harrison and Andrew Roth in Moscow
Wed 6 Feb 2019 20.36 GMT First published on Wed 6 Feb 2019 12.55 GMT
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Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai speaks at the Moscow conference. Photograph: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
The Taliban and top Afghan powerbrokers have ended two days of landmark talks in Moscow with a broad but vague statement of shared principles, whose content was perhaps less important than the fact of the meeting itself.
As the departure of US troops draws nearer, the insurgents have refused to meet the Afghan government, which they denounce as a puppet regime.
But in Moscow they talked, ate and prayed with the powerful men who have fought against them on the battlefield, served in past governments and aspire to rule in Kabul again.
The delegation from Kabul included a former president, Hamid Karzai, an aspiring one, Hanif Atmar, and only two women. It was the closest the Taliban had come to acknowledging that swathes of the population opposed to their rule will also need representatives at the table for any peace talks.
Karzai said a nine-point agreement that was adopted late on Wednesday at Moscow’s President hotel included calls for “peace, stability and an Afghanistan free of foreign forces”.
The Taliban’s lead negotiator Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, in a statement to the press, described the meeting as “very successful – we managed to agree on a lot of points”.
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Delegates at the talks in Moscow. Photograph: Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/Getty Images
The Afghan government did not attend the talks and Wednesday’s vague agreement glossed over most thorny details, including any possible timetable for a western withdrawal from the country.
In remarks to journalists, Stanikzai denied previous statements byTaliban negotiators that the US had agreed to withdraw half of its troops from Afghanistan by the end of April, saying that no deadline had been agreed and talks were continuing.
He had also told the BBC on Tuesday that the Taliban had no plans to seize the whole of Afghanistan by military force, and saying a push for total military domination “will not bring peace to Afghanistan”.
The Moscow meeting came as Donald Trump signalled an increased determination to end the US military presence there after more than 17 years. “Great nations do not fight endless wars,” he said in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday.
He has appointed a senior envoy to push for a negotiated end to the war, and US and Taliban negotiators spent six days last month hammering out a framework draft of a peace deal in Qatar.
In Moscow some of the pro-government delegates warned that the US should not leave too fast. “We know that President Trump is in a hurry about this peace process,” said Atta Muhammad Noor, one of the most influential men in northern Afghanistan.
“Anything which is done in a hurry can lead to some damage. We have to be very careful,” he said, calling for any withdrawal to take place only after Afghanistan’s security had been guaranteed.
The latest rounds of talks have left the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, uncomfortably isolated.
But seated around the table in Moscow were some of Afghanistan’s most wealthy and influential men, warlords and others who wielded power in civilian governments. Several had formed part of Ghani’s government until recently.
Ghani denounced his exclusion in an angry interview on Afghanistan’s Tolo TV channel. “At the end of any peace deal, the decision-maker will be the government of Afghanistan,” he said. “Rest assured that no one can push us aside.”
Karzai, who led the delegation, shrugged off charges of hypocrisy; during his terms as president he denounced any efforts to talk to the Taliban that excluded his own government.
The talks saw hundreds of Afghan representatives, veterans of wars for and against both the US and the Soviets, and rounds of civil war, descend on the marble lobby of Moscow’s President hotel. The negotiations took place in a grand conference room flanked by souvenir shops, with occasional breaks for prayer.
Anwar ul-Haq Ahady, a former finance minister, said in an interview that the conference’s location showed that Russia was once again becoming “relevant” in Afghanistan.
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Afghanistan’s former president Hamid Karzai (left) with Stanikzai. Photograph: TASS/Barcroft Images
“In the past few years, Russia has reasserted its role” in Afghanistan, said Ahady. “It has relations with the Taliban and some of the leading personalities of Afghanistan. I think it’s a sign of the re-emergence of Russia in Afghan politics.”
The Moscow talks are officially being organised by members of the Afghan diaspora. But there is little question of official support, not least because the Taliban delegation given visas to travel are all still on a terror watchlist. The meeting was also held at a Kremlin-owned hotel.
Women’s rights have played a prominent role in the talks, with concerns that an empowered Taliban could seek to roll back new civil rights if they gain great power. The two women delegates called for women’s rights to be at the heart of any settlement, and protected by the international community.
The Taliban at the talks have disavowed responsibility for some of the most heinous acts of violence against women in areas controlled by the group, and have said they will grant all women their rights under Islamic law.
But Fawzia Koofi, a politician and women’s rights activist, said Afghan women wanted a mechanism to enforce any promises. “How do you ensure that all these nice statements are not just made to convince the US and international community to leave and then life goes back to how it was under the Taliban?” she asked.
“We have to be very careful with these nice statements. If there’s no guarantor, how can we ensure that things won’t return to how they were under the Taliban?”
塔利班称莫斯科会谈非常成功 各方要求美军完全撤离
2019年02月08日 13:50 参考消息网
32
参考消息网2月8日报道 外媒称，塔利班2月6日称赞与阿富汗政要们举行的前所未有的会谈“非常成功”，尽管在一些问题上还存在分歧。
据法新社2月6日报道，在为期两天的莫斯科特别会谈上，塔利班领导人与前总统哈米德·卡尔扎伊并肩站立，后者称叛军为“兄弟”，双方同意寻求持久和平。
报道称，没有阿政府官员受邀出席会谈。
塔利班代表团团长谢尔·穆罕默德·阿巴斯·斯塔尼克扎伊与面带微笑的卡尔扎伊，罕见地出现在媒体面前。
斯塔尼克扎伊对记者说：“此次会谈非常成功。”
“我们在许多观点上达成一致。未来，我们能取得进一步成功，最终我们能够达成解决方案。我对此充满希望。我们能实现阿富汗的彻底和平。”他说。
报道指出，各方一致表示支持与美国谈判代表开展的多哈和谈。美国总统特朗普2月5日称和谈是“建设性的”。
各方共同发表的九点声明在外国军队从阿富汗完全撤军问题上达成了一致。
斯塔尼克扎伊说，撤军时间表“到目前为止尚未确定……但我们正在对此进行谈判”。
另据俄罗斯塔斯社报道，会议组织者称，会议取得了出人意料的、大有希望的成果。
各方协商通过了最终文件。他们共同勾勒了阿富汗的未来轮廓，即一个和平与自由的国家。值得一提的是，与会者呼吁将塔利班从联合国的黑名单中移除，并商定在近期内再度举行会谈。
会谈的组织者是在俄阿富汗侨民的代表，他们先前举办了记者会，公开表示无意谋求在危机调停方面作出最终决定。用他们的话说，重要的是开始对话。他们不止一次强调，会场将不会出现阿富汗政府代表的身影。俄外交部也声明，俄官员不参与，因为外交部并非此次会谈的组织者。
报道指出，按会议既定日程，代表们进行了数小时的讨论和会谈，还出台了联合宣言，这令多数人始料未及。
最知名的与会者、阿富汗前总统卡尔扎伊和塔利班代表团负责人斯塔尼克扎伊都提到，美军从阿富汗领土撤出是中心议题之一。
会谈的主要组织者之一、莫斯科的阿富汗侨民代表内萨尔解释道：“所有各方均认同，对于营造条件以展开和平调停、战胜政治危机而言，外国撤军是必不可少的。然而，对美国军人应以何种方式、在什么期限内离开阿富汗，存在不同看法。”
报道称，外国军人从阿富汗境内撤出是实施和平调停的重要标尺。与会者在共同声明中专辟一条，明言禁止外国干预，但也做好准备，在基础设施重建方面接受国际援助。声明还呼吁将塔利班从联合国的黑名单中移除。
各方商定将定期举行类似形式的会谈，下次的地点预计为卡塔尔首都多哈。
路透社援引一名塔利班官员的话表示，尚未就美军部分撤离阿富汗的时间表与美国政府达成一致，谈判仍在进行中。
此前，俄新社援引参与和谈的一名塔利班官员的话说，华盛顿承诺在4月底前撤出一半驻阿部队。
但是，此报道在莫斯科和谈的最后遭到否认，因为俄新社之前援引的那名塔利班官员阿卜杜勒·萨拉姆·哈纳菲否认曾发表该言论。
他说，并未与美国首席谈判代表扎尔梅·哈利勒扎德达成任何具体协议。哈利勒扎德一直在与塔利班谈判代表见面。
“直到现在，我们也未达成一致。”哈纳菲说。对于在4月撤军一事，他说：“那是我们的渴望，是我们的要求……我们的要求是外国军队尽快撤出。”
The Taliban said the Moscow talks were very successful. The parties demanded that the US military withdraw completely.
February 08, 2019 13:50 Reference Message Network
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Reference News Network reported on February 8 Foreign media said that the Taliban praised the unprecedented talks with Afghan politicians on February 6 "very successful", although there are still some differences.
According to Agence France-Presse reported on February 6, during the two-day special talks in Moscow, the Taliban leaders stood side by side with former President Hamid Karzai, who called the rebels "brothers" and both agreed to seek lasting peace.
The report said that no government officials were invited to attend the talks.
The head of the Taliban delegation, Shel Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai and the smiling Karzai, rarely appeared in the media.
Stanik Zai told reporters: "The talks were very successful."
"We have reached consensus on many points of view. In the future, we can achieve further success, and finally we can reach a solution. I am full of hope. We can achieve complete peace in Afghanistan," he said.
The report pointed out that all parties unanimously expressed support for the Doha peace talks with the US negotiators. US President Trump said on February 5 that the peace talks were "constructive."
The nine-point statement jointly issued by the parties reached an agreement on the complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
A photo of a US military base taken in the Dehbara area of Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, on July 7, 2018. A photo of a US military base taken in the Dehbara area of Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, on July 7, 2018.
Stanikzai said that the timetable for withdrawal is "not yet determined...but we are negotiating this."
According to the Russian Tass news agency, the organizers of the conference said that the meeting had achieved unexpected and promising results.
The parties finally negotiated the adoption of the final document. Together they outline the future of Afghanistan, a country of peace and freedom. It is worth mentioning that the participants called for the removal of the Taliban from the UN blacklist and agreed to hold talks again in the near future.
The organizers of the talks were representatives of Russian Afghan nationals who had previously held a press conference and publicly stated that they had no intention of seeking a final decision on crisis mediation. In their words, it is important to start a conversation. More than once, they stressed that there will be no representatives of the Afghan government at the venue. The Russian Foreign Ministry also stated that Russian officials did not participate because the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was not the organizer of the talks.
The report pointed out that according to the scheduled agenda of the meeting, the delegates conducted several hours of discussions and talks, and also issued a joint declaration, which made most people unexpected.
The most well-known participants, former Afghan President Karzai and the head of the Taliban delegation, Stanick Zhai, all mentioned that the withdrawal of US troops from Afghan territory is one of the central issues.
One of the main organizers of the talks, Nassar, a representative of the Afghan nationals in Moscow, explained: "All parties agree that foreign withdrawal is essential for creating conditions for peaceful mediation and overcoming political crises. However, There are different views on the manner in which US military personnel should leave Afghanistan and in what period."
According to reports, the withdrawal of foreign soldiers from Afghanistan is an important yardstick for the implementation of peaceful mediation. Participants in the joint statement made a special statement, banned from foreign intervention, but were also prepared to receive international assistance in infrastructure reconstruction. The statement also called for the removal of the Taliban from the UN blacklist.
The parties agreed to hold similar forms of talks on a regular basis, and the next location is expected to be Doha, Qatar.
Reuters quoted a Taliban official as saying that it has not yet reached an agreement with the US government on the timetable for the partial withdrawal of the US military from Afghanistan, and negotiations are still in progress.
Earlier, the Russian news agency quoted a Taliban official who participated in the peace talks as saying that Washington promised to withdraw half of the troops stationed in Afghanistan before the end of April.
However, this report was denied at the end of the Moscow peace talks, because the Taliban official Abdul Salam Hanafi, previously quoted by RIA Novosti, denied having made the statement.
He said that he did not reach any specific agreement with the US chief negotiator, Zalme Khalilzad. Khalilzad has been meeting with Taliban negotiators.
"Until now, we have not reached an agreement," Hanafy said. Regarding the withdrawal of troops in April, he said: "That is our desire, our request... Our request is for the foreign troops to withdraw as soon as possible."
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019...oops-leave-afghanistan-1-190206112809013.html
Russia says ready to help Taliban talks on US withdrawal
Offer made after Taliban leaders met with Afghan representatives in Moscow during 'very successful' negotiations.
23 hours ago
Progress has been made with Taliban leaders to end the 17-year, $1 trillion US-led war [Maxim Shemetov/Reuters]
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A top Russian diplomat has met with Taliban representatives and expressed Moscow's support for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The meeting came after two days of talks between prominent Afghan figures and Taliban representatives in Moscow and contradictory statements about an immediate US forces pullout from the country.
A senior Taliban official said on Wednesday the United States promised to withdraw half of its troops from Afghanistan by the end of April, but later retracted the assertion.
The head of the Taliban delegation said no time had been fixed for a US withdrawal from the country and negotiations were in progress.
The US' chief negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad also refuted the claim in a tweet.
Zamir Kabulovm, the Russian presidential envoy on Afghanistan, told the RIA Novosti news agency on Thursday that Russia is willing to help talks between the US and the Taliban on the withdrawal of US troops.
It wasn't clear what assistance the Russians would offer.
Kabulov also said Moscow would be willing to support lifting sanctions on the Taliban as long as other UN Security Council members were also on board.
Until now, the US has been at the forefront of negotiations. Since being appointed last September as the US special representative for Afghan reconciliation, Khalilzad has carried out a number of rounds of talks with the Taliban and other regional representatives in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, India, Russia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
Mixed feelings in Afghanistan over US-Taliban talks
The US envoy's most recent talks were in Doha late last month where the two sides met for six days.
Khalilzad told the New York Times that a draft framework was agreed that could eventually turn into an agreement.
"Meetings here were more productive than they have been in the past. We made significant progress on vital issues," he wrote on Twitter.
Washington wants assurances that Afghanistan will not harbour groups that would use the country as a base to launch attacks on the US.
The Taliban want all American troops to withdraw.
In December, there were numerous reports that US President Donald Trump planned to halve the estimated 14,000 US forces in Afghanistan.
In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Trump said any troop pullout would be linked to progress in peace talks.
The Taliban has refused to negotiate directly with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's government, calling it a "puppet" of the West.
Fears a deal with the Taliban will affect Afghan women's rights
No government representatives have been included in any talks with the Taliban, in Moscow, Doha or elsewhere.
'Fruitful' meeting
A top US general said Kabul must be involved in talks if the push for a peace deal is to be successful.
"Ultimately, we need to get to a Taliban-Afghanistan discussion," General Joseph Votel, head of US Central Command, told US legislators.
"Only they will be able to resolve the key issues involved in the dispute."
A number of Ghani's political opponents took part in the two days of meetings in Moscow, including his former national security adviser Hanif Atmar, who plans to run for the presidency in elections scheduled for July.
The head of the Taliban delegation in Moscow, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, called the meeting "fruitful".
"It was very successful. We agreed on many points and I am hopeful that in future we can succeed further, and finally we can reach a solution, we can find a complete peace in Afghanistan," Stanikzai said.
Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai called the discussions "very satisfactory".
Ghani said he had spoken late on Tuesday with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who stressed the importance of "ensuring the centrality of the Afghan government in the peace process".
The Afghan president has vented frustration at being sidelined as his political enemies shared prayers and meals with the Taliban while discussing the future of the country.
The Moscow conference was the Taliban's most significant engagement with Afghan representatives in recent memory.
101 East
Afghanistan: Taliban At The Gates
SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019...-opposition-talks-moscow-190204145837603.html
Kabul 'regrets' Taliban-Afghan opposition talks in Russia
Afghan government criticises Tuesday's Moscow meeting, saying opposition politicians attending 'in order to gain power'.
5 Feb 2019
The Taliban has refused to talk to Ghani's government, which they denounce as a US puppet [Rahmat Gul/AP]
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The Afghan government has criticised talks in Russia between the Taliban and opposition figures - including former president Hamid Karzai - as regrettable while politicians attending described the gathering as the continuation of peace efforts.
The discussions starting on Tuesday in Moscow come 10 days after peace negotiations between the United States and the Taliban in Qatar ended with signs of progress towards the withdrawal of thousands of foreign troops from Afghanistan and an end to more than 17 years of war.
Fazel Fazly, the chief adviser to President Ashraf Ghani, expressed "regret" that politicians who previously led Afghanistan's democratic transition were to meet Taliban leaders over two days.
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Afghan government says US withdrawal will not affect security
"[They] are ready to bypass these principles and move towards [the principles'] destruction due to differences and being away from power," Fazly said on Twitter.
Ghani's office criticised the meeting saying Afghan politicians attending were doing so "in order to gain power".
Along with Karzai, many of the 38 delegates from Kabul have held prominent government positions. Also on the list are powerful commanders-turned-politicians and former Taliban fighters who reconciled with the Kabul administration.
The Moscow gathering is likely to further isolate Ghani who has been irked by US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad's direct talks with the Taliban, as well as his successive rounds of talks in regional countries.
Push for peace
The Moscow-based Council of Afghan Society, an organisation of the Afghan diaspora in Russia, organised the meeting.
It said the participants will discuss a range of issues, including a ceasefire, ways to support Khalilzad's initiatives and a path to ensure a "powerful and democratic central government" in Afghanistan.
The push for peace comes as the Taliban, thrown out by the US-led forces in 2001, has staged near-daily attacks and is in control of or contesting districts in nearly half the country.
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US-Taliban talks stir hope for peace, fears for women's rights
The latest quarterly report by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction showed 53.8 percent of Afghanistan's 407 districts are with the government, covering 63.5 percent of the population. The rest is under Taliban control.
Abdullah Abdullah, the government's chief executive, who addressed reporters in Kabul on Monday, said the Afghan government should be at the centre of any peace talks, adding it "would prefer the Moscow meeting had a different shape".
"[The Taliban] have the mindset that their position will be strengthened as they see that the talks are ongoing in different places," Abdullah said, referring to recent negotiations in Qatar and Moscow, as quoted by Afghan news website ToloNews.
'Unity, sovereignty, progress'
Karzai confirmed his attendance at the talks, saying in a tweet he would carry a message of "peace, unity, sovereignty and progress for all of us".
He replaced the Taliban rule as Afghanistan's first democratically elected leader after the armed group was overthrown by Afghan forces supported by US air power.
Another delegate to the Moscow sessions, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, an influential former national security adviser to Ghani, said they would emphasise the need to include the government in future intra-Afghan discussions.
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Profile: Abdul Ghani Baradar, Taliban's political head in Qatar
But he urged the government not to look at the peace process from a "narrow governmental window".
The US has some 14,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led Resolute Support mission and a separate counterterrorism effort largely directed at groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS).
Some 8,000 troops from 38 other countries are
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...y-have-no-plans-to-seize-afghanistan-by-force
Taliban and Afghan groups find common ground in landmark talks
Insurgents attend Moscow peace summit, but Afghan president is excluded
Emma Graham-Harrison and Andrew Roth in Moscow
Wed 6 Feb 2019 20.36 GMT First published on Wed 6 Feb 2019 12.55 GMT
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Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai speaks at the Moscow conference. Photograph: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
The Taliban and top Afghan powerbrokers have ended two days of landmark talks in Moscow with a broad but vague statement of shared principles, whose content was perhaps less important than the fact of the meeting itself.
As the departure of US troops draws nearer, the insurgents have refused to meet the Afghan government, which they denounce as a puppet regime.
But in Moscow they talked, ate and prayed with the powerful men who have fought against them on the battlefield, served in past governments and aspire to rule in Kabul again.
The delegation from Kabul included a former president, Hamid Karzai, an aspiring one, Hanif Atmar, and only two women. It was the closest the Taliban had come to acknowledging that swathes of the population opposed to their rule will also need representatives at the table for any peace talks.
Karzai said a nine-point agreement that was adopted late on Wednesday at Moscow’s President hotel included calls for “peace, stability and an Afghanistan free of foreign forces”.
The Taliban’s lead negotiator Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, in a statement to the press, described the meeting as “very successful – we managed to agree on a lot of points”.
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Delegates at the talks in Moscow. Photograph: Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/Getty Images
The Afghan government did not attend the talks and Wednesday’s vague agreement glossed over most thorny details, including any possible timetable for a western withdrawal from the country.
In remarks to journalists, Stanikzai denied previous statements byTaliban negotiators that the US had agreed to withdraw half of its troops from Afghanistan by the end of April, saying that no deadline had been agreed and talks were continuing.
He had also told the BBC on Tuesday that the Taliban had no plans to seize the whole of Afghanistan by military force, and saying a push for total military domination “will not bring peace to Afghanistan”.
The Moscow meeting came as Donald Trump signalled an increased determination to end the US military presence there after more than 17 years. “Great nations do not fight endless wars,” he said in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday.
He has appointed a senior envoy to push for a negotiated end to the war, and US and Taliban negotiators spent six days last month hammering out a framework draft of a peace deal in Qatar.
In Moscow some of the pro-government delegates warned that the US should not leave too fast. “We know that President Trump is in a hurry about this peace process,” said Atta Muhammad Noor, one of the most influential men in northern Afghanistan.
“Anything which is done in a hurry can lead to some damage. We have to be very careful,” he said, calling for any withdrawal to take place only after Afghanistan’s security had been guaranteed.
The latest rounds of talks have left the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, uncomfortably isolated.
But seated around the table in Moscow were some of Afghanistan’s most wealthy and influential men, warlords and others who wielded power in civilian governments. Several had formed part of Ghani’s government until recently.
Ghani denounced his exclusion in an angry interview on Afghanistan’s Tolo TV channel. “At the end of any peace deal, the decision-maker will be the government of Afghanistan,” he said. “Rest assured that no one can push us aside.”
Karzai, who led the delegation, shrugged off charges of hypocrisy; during his terms as president he denounced any efforts to talk to the Taliban that excluded his own government.
The talks saw hundreds of Afghan representatives, veterans of wars for and against both the US and the Soviets, and rounds of civil war, descend on the marble lobby of Moscow’s President hotel. The negotiations took place in a grand conference room flanked by souvenir shops, with occasional breaks for prayer.
Anwar ul-Haq Ahady, a former finance minister, said in an interview that the conference’s location showed that Russia was once again becoming “relevant” in Afghanistan.
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Afghanistan’s former president Hamid Karzai (left) with Stanikzai. Photograph: TASS/Barcroft Images
“In the past few years, Russia has reasserted its role” in Afghanistan, said Ahady. “It has relations with the Taliban and some of the leading personalities of Afghanistan. I think it’s a sign of the re-emergence of Russia in Afghan politics.”
The Moscow talks are officially being organised by members of the Afghan diaspora. But there is little question of official support, not least because the Taliban delegation given visas to travel are all still on a terror watchlist. The meeting was also held at a Kremlin-owned hotel.
Women’s rights have played a prominent role in the talks, with concerns that an empowered Taliban could seek to roll back new civil rights if they gain great power. The two women delegates called for women’s rights to be at the heart of any settlement, and protected by the international community.
The Taliban at the talks have disavowed responsibility for some of the most heinous acts of violence against women in areas controlled by the group, and have said they will grant all women their rights under Islamic law.
But Fawzia Koofi, a politician and women’s rights activist, said Afghan women wanted a mechanism to enforce any promises. “How do you ensure that all these nice statements are not just made to convince the US and international community to leave and then life goes back to how it was under the Taliban?” she asked.
“We have to be very careful with these nice statements. If there’s no guarantor, how can we ensure that things won’t return to how they were under the Taliban?”
