Three senior members of the Taliban briefed Pakistani officials about the recent secret talks with Kabul held in Qatar.
According to local news channel ‘ARY News’ the meeting held at Islamabad in which an Afghan diplomat and a senior Taliban official were present.
On the other hand, the Afghan ambassador to Pakistan, Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal, said he was aware of the meetings but refused to offer details.
The Taliban who were sent to Pakistan included former ministers in the Taliban government, Mullah Salam Hanifi and Mullah Jan Mohammed, and Maulvi Shahabuddin Dilawar, also a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, said the senior Taliban official.
Islamabad is playing its role to ensure peace in Afghanistan, said the senior Pakistani security official on condition of anonymity who confirmed the latest meetings between the Taliban and Pakistani authorities.
“We will keep making efforts to facilitate talks between Kabul and the Taliban, as we did in July 2015, but the world knows who scuttled the peace process at the time and we do not want to discuss those bitter things,” the Pakistani official added.
Pakistan arranged the first ever face-to-face meeting between Kabul and the Taliban in 2015, but the peace process broke down after the Afghan government announced the death years earlier of the Taliban’s one-eyed founder and leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.
In the time since, a leadership struggle within the Taliban’s ranks broke into the open and Omar’s successor was killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan.
The latest development came after Taliban and Afghan government officials held new secret talks in Qatar aimed at restarting peace negotiations to end the country’s long war.
Pakistan was not involved in the talks.The Taliban said Pakistan was not aware of them until they were over.
Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani, angered by a series of attacks in Kabul he blamed on Taliban living in Pakistan, reportedly said he no longer wanted Pakistan involved in negotiations.
