{"id":25352,"date":"2016-02-24T09:07:17","date_gmt":"2016-02-24T17:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/talks-with-taliban-to-begin-in-march\/"},"modified":"2016-02-24T09:07:17","modified_gmt":"2016-02-24T17:07:17","slug":"talks-with-taliban-to-begin-in-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/talks-with-taliban-to-begin-in-march\/","title":{"rendered":"Talks with Taliban to begin in March"},"content":{"rendered":"

KABUL, Afghanistan \u2014<\/strong> Four countries trying to end Afghanistan\u2019s 15-year war with the Taliban announced on Tuesday that direct talks between the Afghan government and the insurgent group will take place next week.<\/p>\n

Representatives of Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States met in the Afghan capital for a fourth round of discussions to set conditions for eventual peace talks between Kabul and the Taliban.<\/p>\n

In a joint statement, they invited insurgents to join the talks, which will be the first between the two sides since the peace process was restarted last month. Efforts to bring the warring sides together last year were derailed when Kabul revealed that the Taliban\u2019s one-eyed leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had been dead for more than two years.<\/p>\n

In Tuesday\u2019s communique, the four countries \u201cexpressed strong support for the upcoming direct talks between the government of Afghanistan and authorized representatives of the Taliban and other groups.\u201d The talks would take place in Pakistan.<\/p>\n

The delegations were led by Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai, Pakistan\u2019s Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, Chinese Ambassador to Afghanistan Yao Jing and U.S. Charge d\u2019Affaires in Kabul David Lindwall. They said they would meet again immediately after the direct Kabul-Taliban talks.<\/p>\n

It was the fourth meeting of the so-called Quadrilateral Cooperation Group, which has earlier called on the Taliban to enter peace talks with Kabul and work toward cutting violence that has killed thousands of Afghan civilians since the insurgency started almost 15 years ago.<\/p>\n

Taliban leaders, who fled across the Pakistan border to escape the 2001 U.S. invasion, are believed to be harbored by Pakistani authorities, in particular the ISI intelligence agency, in cities including Quetta, Karachi and Peshawar. While Pakistan denies providing safe havens for the insurgents, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has led accusations that the Taliban are a proxy force for Islamabad\u2019s regional interests.<\/p>\n

This deep mistrust of Pakistan means that \u201cit is three against one around the talks table,\u201d said an Afghan official who asked not to be named as the sensitivity of the issue meant he had no authority to speak publicly.<\/p>\n

While China is a reluctant international peace broker, as its own foreign policy is built on a principle of \u201cnon-interference\u201d in other countries\u2019 affairs, its presence does appear to be yielding results. Analysts agreed that China appears to be exerting a useful influence on its ally, Islamabad.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir close, longstanding security relationship gives China unique leverage but there are also positive incentives,\u201d said Andrew Small, an expert on China\u2019s relationships with Pakistan and Afghanistan, and author of \u201cThe China-Pakistan Axis.\u201d<\/p>\n

China\u2019s multi-billion dollar development plans for Pakistan, through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, require a \u201cstable neighborhood,\u201d Small said. \u201cChina\u2019s presence at the talks is also a reassurance that Pakistan\u2019s interests will be looked after in any settlement \u2014 they\u2019re a trusted partner and it reduces the Pakistani anxiety about deals being done behind their back.\u201d<\/p>\n

China also has ties with the Taliban dating to their 1996-2001 rule, when Beijing sent representatives to Kabul and Kandahar to secure guarantees that anti-Beijing groups such as the East Turkistan Islamic Movement would not use Afghanistan as a base from which to attack China. Beijing is concerned the Muslim Uighurs of the far-west Xinjiang province, which shares a short border with Afghanistan, present a nascent threat to its national security, through groups like the ETIM.<\/p>\n

Raffaello Pantucci, director of international security studies at London\u2019s Royal United Services Institute, said all parties to the peace process realize that China \u201cis the one regional power which has lots of money, meaning they all want Chinese support and investment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan has long courted Chinese investment in developing its infrastructure and minerals sector. China has ambitions for Afghanistan\u2019s raw materials as well as for using the country as a route to the markets of the west.<\/p>\n

Three officials close to the talks process have said that Pakistan\u2019s representatives had earlier given assurances that violence will be noticeably reduced in coming weeks.<\/p>\n

The Taliban have announced the date of their so-called spring offensive most years since launching their insurgency, a ritual the officials said could be suspended this year, helping build trust between Afghanistan and Pakistan.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer in Kabul, Rahim Faiez contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KABUL, Afghanistan \u2014 Four countries trying to end Afghanistan\u2019s 15-year war with the Taliban announced on Tuesday that direct talks between the Afghan government and the insurgent group will take place next week. Representatives of Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States met in the Afghan capital for a fourth round of discussions to set […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":25353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-25352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25352"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=25352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}