Conflicts & War

Russia urges Taliban, Afghanistan to avoid further peace process delays

Moscow, Mar 18 (efe-epa).- An Afghan peace conference began in Moscow Thursday that brought together the Kabul government and Taliban negotiators and foreign observers to help speed up the stagnated peace process.

The host Russia urged the two sides to avoid further delays in jump-starting the peace talks that have been going on since September last year without any breakthrough in seeking to end the decades of the Afghan war.

United States peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, Afghanistan’s chief peace negotiator Abdullah Abdullah and Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar participated in the meeting.

The one-day conference is the first of the planned international meetings ahead of a May 1 deadline for the final withdrawal of US and NATO troops from Afghanistan as agreed under the peace agreement signed with the Taliban in February 2020.

“Unfortunately, the process has not provided yet any positive results but we expect further progress down the line,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in his inaugural address to the conference.

He said Moscow was worried that the situation was deteriorating in Afghanistan where radical groups, including the Islamic State, were trying to use the situation to strengthen their position in the region.

He said Moscow was worried that the situation was deteriorating in Afghanistan where radical groups, including the Islamic State, were trying to use the situation to strengthen their position in the region.

He said Russia welcomed all initiatives aimed at the diplomatic peace process and stressed that international efforts needed to be promoted and boosted to fight the terrorists and drug trafficking threats emerging from the war-ravaged country.

“We call on all sides to prevent further hostilities from happening. We need to engage in diplomatic dialog and this is the only way to resolve key issues existing between the parties and this is the idea of today’s meeting,” the minister said.

Delegations from Qatar and special envoys from Russia, the US, China, and Pakistan are attending the conference.

Lavrov also called on the US and the Taliban “to comply with their obligations” to the historic agreement signed on Feb.29, 2020, in Doha that opened the door for talks intra-Afghan talks. EFE

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