MONITORING (SW) – In his latest trip of shuttle diplomacy, the top US peace envoy for Afghanistan has urged warring parties to reduce the escalating levels of violence.
In a series of tweets, Zalmay Khalilzad, said he held meetings with President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and chairman High Council of Reconciliation Abdullah Abdullah in Kabul as well as the Taliban’s deputy head Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Doha, Qatar.
“We discussed next steps required to implement the agreement between the 2 leaders (Ghani and Abdullah). On peace, we agreed that violence is much too high and there is a need to move urgently to reduce it by all sides”, he said.
Khalilzad added that they also agreed on the importance of delivering (and soon) on other commitments made in the US-Taliban agreement and US-Afghanistan joint declaration including release of prisoners by both sides and the start of intra-Afghan negotiations. “In my meeting with Dr Abdullah, we discussed his plans for operationalizing his new role and will be working closely with him and his team”.
The Taliban’s Qatar office spokesman, Suhail Shaheen said about Khalilzad’s meeting with Mullah Baradar that they talked in details about acceleration of the peace process. “Mullah Bradar said, solution of the Afghan issue lies in the complete implementation of the Agreement. Other mechanisms rather than the Agreement, means creating hurdles in the way of peace. Even now, the peace process has been harmed. Any further delay in its implementation will further harm the process”, he tweeted.
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