KABUL: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said international meetings this month to lay the groundwork for a possible resumption of peace talks with the Taliban had to seek an approach to the fractured insurgent movement that ensured a rejection of terrorism.
Officials from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States are due to meet in Islamabad on Jan. 11 to try to revive a peace process that stalled in July when the news came out that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had died two years earlier.
President added that “Talk with Talibans is only solutions to ending terrorism from country.
“It is obvious that there are groups of Taliban, not a unified movement,”Ghani told a news conference on Thursday.”The fundamental issue here is the choice: choose peace or terrorism, “he said.”There will be no tolerance for terrorism.”
This month’s meeting will be followed by another encounter in Kabul, with Afghanistan initially represented by Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai.
The United States and China have both been pressing hard for a resumption of talks with the Taliban but mutual suspicions between Kabul and Islamabad, as well as the factional fighting within the Taliban, have held up the process. (Khaama)