TASHKENT – *Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Afghan President AshrafGhani will open a high-level international conference on Afghanistan -“Peace Process, Cooperation in the Sphere of Security and RegionalInteraction” – in Tashkent later this month, Uzbekistan’s media reported. *

According to uzdaily.com, the conference will take place on March 26 and27, and will be held in the country’s capital Tashkent.

High-ranking officials are expected to attend including UN GeneralSecretary Antonio Guterres and the UN Special Envoy to AfghanistanTadamichi Yamamoto, High Representative of the European Union for ForeignAffairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, as well as the foreignministers of China, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany,Italy, France, Turkey, India, Iran, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,uzdaily.com reported.

This comes on the heels of the recent Kabul Process meeting where AfghanPresident Ashraf Ghani laid out a detailed peace offer to the Taliban.

Representatives from 25 countries, the European Union and the UN and NATOall attended the one-day summit.

Uzdaily reported that the upcoming meeting aims to get conferenceparticipants to express a consolidated position on the necessity ofstarting direct negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

The conference will be summed up by a Tashkent Declaration, that willreflect the main points of the discussion, according to the report.

“Uzbekistan put forward the idea to hold the Tashkent conference not as aone-time event only, but will rather put serious efforts both at thebilateral and multilateral levels to promote peaceful political process inAfghanistan,” the Uzbek Foreign Ministry said was quoted by uzdaily.com assaying.