Taliban negotiators have demanded that their US interlocutors stop “adding demands” to the difficult peace talks between Washington and the insurgents to end the war in Afghanistan, according to a guerrilla statement collected by the Afghan network Tolo News.
Among these new demands – presented at a new meeting held in Doha (Qatar) last Thursday – is the requirement that the Taliban declare “a long-term ceasefire”, something that the rebels have understood as an attempt to unnecessarily prolong the talks, against the wishes of Afghan society.
“All strata of Afghan society are asking the United States to sign the peaceful resolution agreement and refrain from new demands, reservations and excuses,” the Taliban said in the statement.
For its part, the Afghan Government, excluded at the moment from these talks when being considered by the Taliban as an illegitimate authority, has reiterated that the militias must be “realistic, denounce war and violence and support a true peace process” , according to the deputy spokesman of the Afghan Presidency, Durani Waziri.
The former Taliban commander Sayed Akbar Ahga understands that these new demands only accentuate the difficult situation facing conversations that right now “are in neutral.”
“The Taliban suspect that there could be another condition after this condition, so they could end up rejecting the option of reducing violence in the country altogether,” he explained to the Afghan network.
