NEW YORK – Iran on Wednesday criticized US talks with the Taliban onending the Afghanistan war, saying Washington was elevating the role of themilitants.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif acknowledged that Iran had alsoopened dialogue with the Taliban but said that the US push for a deal withthe extremists was “seriously wrong.”
“An attempt to exclude everybody and just talk to the Taliban has alienatedthe government, has alienated the region, has alienated everybody else andit achieved nothing, as you ve seen from the statement that came from theTaliban,” Zarif said, apparently referring to the militants announcementof a new spring offensive.
“I was the first to say that in any peace in Afghanistan, the Talibancannot be set aside or isolated,” Zarif said at the Asia Society in NewYork, which he was visiting to take part in a UN session.
“But you cannot negotiate the future of Afghanistan with the Taliban. TheTaliban only represent a segment of Afghan society, not all of it,” he said.
President Donald Trump has voiced impatience at ending the longest-ever USwar, launched after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is set shortly to hold a fresh round of talks inQatar with the Taliban, with early indications saying Washington will agreeto pull troops and that the militants will promise not to allow foreignextremists on their soil.
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But the Taliban have refused to negotiate with President Ashraf Ghani sinternationally recognized government, with a would-be breakthrough meetingrecently collapsing in a dispute over the delegation list.
Despite its tense relations with the United States, Iran had quietly backedthe initial US invasion that ousted the Taliban, Sunni Muslims who imposedan austere interpretation of Islam over Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
Iran, led by Shiite clerics, nearly went to war with the Taliban in 1998after an attack on its consulate in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharifkilled nine Iranian diplomats and a journalist.
But Iran has more recently sought to build relations with the Taliban,mindful of preserving interests in the neighboring country. -APP/AFP
