July 24, 2019
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan who is on a three-day visit in Washington said that he will meet with the Taliban after returning to Islamabad and that he will get the group to the negotiation table with the Afghan government.
“Taliban delegation wanted to meet me few months back… It is because I always maintained that there was no military solution [to the war in Afghanistan],” Khan said at the US Institute of Peace.
He said that the Taliban “wanted to meet him but the Afghan government at that point did not want him to meet the group.
“So, I did not meet them, but when I go back after meeting President [Donald] Trump and also, I spoke to President Ghani, now I will meet with the Taliban and I will try my best to get them to talk to the Afghan government and so that the election in Afghanistan must be an inclusive election where the Taliban will also, participate in it,” he added.
Khan’s comments come as the US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad arrived in Kabul on Tuesday.
Khalilzad said in a tweet that he is focused on achieving an enduring peace that ends the war, ensures terrorists do not use Afghanistan to threaten the US, honors the sacrifices that US, our allies and Afghans made, and cements an enduring relationship with Afghanistan.
Source: TOLO news
Disclaimer: Views expressed on this blog are not necessarily endorsed or supported by the Afghan Studies Center and Center for Research and Security Studies, Islamabad.
