Afghan, Taliban Direct Talks Likelier Than Ever With Russian Efforts - Pakistan Diplomat

The chances of direct talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban have improved after this Friday's talks in Moscow, Muhemmed Aejaz, additional secretary for Afghanistan and West Asia at the Pakistan Foreign Ministry, told Sputnik.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 10th November, 2018) The chances of direct talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban have improved after this Friday's talks in Moscow, Muhemmed Aejaz, additional secretary for Afghanistan and West Asia at the Pakistan Foreign Ministry, told Sputnik.

"I think the chances today are better or brighter than ever before. Who could think of all these important stakeholders sitting around one table, including the Taliban? It has happened and a lot of credit goes to Russia for having made it possible. So things now seem increasingly possible on our common desire to have peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan," Aejaz said.

Aejaz, who led the Pakistani delegation at the second round of Moscow format talks between the Doha-based Taliban political office and the Afghan High Peace Council, admitted there were many obstacles to a direct dialogue after 40 years of war in Afghanistan.

"Obstacles relate to Afghanistan, they relate to the regional countries, they relate to the international powers' choices about Afghanistan. The obstacles are many but what was more important was to have that common desire and I think today's meeting very strongly underlined that. That all the major countries and interlocutors and stakeholders at least agree on one point. They all want peace. They all want unity of Afghanistan and they all want stability in the region," he explained.

He urged the parties to the talks - assisted by Pakistan, Russia, China, Iran, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and the United States - to continue their engagement in the spirit of the Moscow format, but warned it was up to the Afghans to launch the peace process.

"I think more important than the date is the continuation of this spirit with which this process has started. Maybe you set a certain date and the spirit is diluted. That will be a difficult thing. It will happen. Sooner or later the direct negotiations, what we call the intra-Afghan dialogue, the intra-Afghan process mainly for reconciliation will happen because the entire peace process has to start from there. The ball is not in any country's court to kick-start that. No single country has the ability to break the stalemate in which Afghanistan is today. Afghans are the ones who have to take their own destiny in their hands. They are the ones who have to start it but what we can do together is to provide that environment, that that spirit is maintained. And again, in that context as well this was a huge achievement today," Aejaz said.

The first round of Moscow-format consultations took place in April last year and was attended by deputy foreign ministers and special representatives from 11 countries.