Afghanistan: talks between Kabul and the Taliban to start "next week"

Abdullah Abdullah, who heads the reconciliation process in Afghanistan, said he was confident Thursday (August 27th) that peace talks between the Kabul government and the Taliban, postponed for months, will start " next week ".

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The inter-Afghan dialogue, supported by the United States, was supposed to start in March, and more recently this month after Eid al-Kebir. But serial disagreements over a prisoner exchange delayed them for a long time. " I can say with relative confidence that the inter-Afghan talks will begin next week ," Abdullah, former Afghan chief executive, said at a public event in Kabul. “ The negotiating team of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is prepared for these talks with the firm determination to represent the strong and united voice of the Afghan people for a lasting and dignified peace ,” he continued.

Pakistan as mediator

The Taliban did not comment on Abdullah Abdullah's remarks, which came days after an official visit by their cadres to Islamabad, which prompted them to negotiate with the Afghan authorities. Pakistan, one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban regime in the 1990s, has some influence over them. Islamabad, which Kabul regularly accuses of harboring and funding insurgents, has repeatedly called for negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan authorities.

Pakistan says it facilitated initial talks between the rebels and the United States, which ousted the latter from power in 2001 after five years of rule. An American-Taliban agreement was signed in February in Qatar, which confirms the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan by mid-2021, in return in particular for the holding of an inter-Afghan dialogue.

But these talks have not started because of disagreements over another clause of the Doha agreement, not ratified by Kabul, relating to an exchange of some 5,000 Taliban for a thousand members of the Afghan forces. Three hundred and twenty, among the most dangerous, remain imprisoned by the Afghan authorities, who for their part demand the prior release of some of their soldiers. France and Australia opposed the release of several of these Taliban, accused of having participated in deadly attacks against their own nationals.