KABUL – Afghan officials are reportedly carrying out at least two tracks oftalks with the Taliban – one between Afghanistan’s intelligence chiefMasoom Stanikzai and the group and another between the president’s NationalSecurity Advisor Mohammed Hanif Atmar and the Taliban, Associated Press hasreported.
This comes after a wave of attacks in the country in January killed over150 people and wounded hundreds more.
Sources familiar to the talks, who were speaking on condition of anonymity,told AP that although talks are ongoing, neither Stanikzai nor Atmar aretalking to each other or to the High Peace Council about their discussions.
Hakim Mujahid, a member of the High Peace Council, confirmed that Stanikzaihas regular contact with the Taliban’s point man for peace talks, MullahAbbas Stanikzai, AP reported. The two are not related.
Mujahid meanwhile told AP that the Taliban would not respond well to USPresident Donald Trump’s outburst last month where he said the door totalks was closed.
Mujahid said: “The language of power, the language of threat will notconvince Afghans to surrender.”
According to the news agency, Andrew Wilder, vice president of the AsiaProgram at the US Institute of Peace, multiple players in Kabul havecontacts with the Taliban. “But this isn’t being done in a coordinatedmanner to achieve clearly defined objectives,” he said.
Meanwhile, the former No. 2 of the Taliban, Aga Jan Motasim, who stillcounts the group’s leader Mullah Habaitullah Akhunzada among his friends,warned that Trump’s strategy of using the military to force a morecompliant Taliban to the negotiation table could lead to more suicideattacks, AP reported.
Motasim said he wants to be a bridge between the government and Taliban.-Agencies