<\/p>\n
MONITORING (SW) \u2013 Turkey plans to host Afghanistan peace talks in Istanbul in April, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said, and Ankara will appoint an Afghanistan special envoy.<\/p>\n
According to Al-Jazeera, Cavusoglu\u2019s comments on Friday come after the United States shared a draft peace plan calling for replacing Afghanistan\u2019s government with a power-sharing interim administration pending elections under a new constitution.<\/p>\n
According to the report, the US proposal is intended to jump-start stalled talks in Doha between the Taliban and a team including Afghan officials on a political settlement to end decades of conflict.<\/p>\n
In a letter leaked to Afghan media, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken encouraged Afghan leaders to consider a \u201cnew, inclusive government\u201d and proposed that talks take place within weeks in Turkey to seal a peace deal with the Taliban.<\/p>\n
Cavusoglu said Turkey had previously been asked by Afghan officials, the Taliban and the negotiation team to host talks, and this week\u2019s decision came after a US proposal for Turkey to host a meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a meeting that is an alternative to the Qatar process, it is a complement to that,\u201d state-owned Anadolu news agency quoted Cavusoglu as saying.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will carry this out in coordination with brotherly Qatar, but it will be in Turkey.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the aim was for talks between the Taliban and the government to continue in a \u201cgoal-oriented\u201d way. The exact date in April, and the content of the talks, were being discussed.<\/p>\n
Cavusoglu also said Turkey had been sending messages to the Taliban and the negotiating team, calling for violence in the country to stop for talks to yield results.<\/p>\n
The Taliban and the Afghan government have been negotiating in Qatar to reach a peace deal. Those talks resumed in January after an almost month-long break, but negotiators and diplomats say there has been little progress since then.<\/p>\n
Russia also plans to hold a conference on Afghanistan in Moscow later this month, the TASS news agency said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n
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