Kabul has proffered a power-sharing agreement to the Taliban, in exchange for stopping the ongoing violence in the country.
An anonymous governmental source stated that the Afghan government had been negotiating peace with the Taliban political office in Doha, Qatar. “Yes, the government has submitted a proposal to Qatar as mediator. The proposal allows the Taliban to share power in return for a halt in violence in the country,” he said. Another negotiator, Ghulam Farooq Majroh, reiterated without much detail that the Taliban were offered to establish a “government of peace”.
This update came about on Thursday (13th August), as the Taliban took over Gazni, about 150km south of Kabul, the 10th provincial capital in a week. However, this development has not been ratified by the official presidential palace in Kabul, who had said that peace negotiations were still taking place without any changes in the progress.
The chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation for Afghanistan, Abdullah Abdullah, said that they had shared the government’s reconciliation plans with Qatar, after he met with foreign diplomats from United States, China, Russia and Afghanistan’s regional neighbors in Doha.
Taliban said last month that it would announce its peace plans in august. However, they have yet to release them, and instead, they have seized 10 provinces all over the country, including Faizabad, Kunduz, and Herat.
The government in Kabul has now lost more of the northern and western portions of the country and remains with a small dispersion of contested cities. The loss of Ghazni now puts an even greater pressure on the nations already thinning resources and failing securities forces.
At the continuation of this violence by the Taliban forces the US chargé d’affaires to Afghanistan, Ross Wilson, commented in Doha,
“The Taliban’s statements in Doha do not resemble their actions in Badakhshan, Ghazni, Helmand, and Kandahar … Attempts to monopolize power through violence, fear and war will only lead to international isolation,”
