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Qatar Says Taliban Office Not for 'Islamic Emirate'
[An Nahar] The Taliban office opened in Doha to facilitate peace talks does not carry the name of the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," as it appeared earlier, Qatar said on Wednesday.Afghanistan's Caped President Hamid Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtunface on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... denounced as a provocation the use of the formal name of the Islamist movement's government from 1996 until it was toppled in 2001. "The office that was opened in Doha yesterday is the political office of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and is not the political office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," Qatar's foreign ministry said, quoted by QNA state news agency. "The official name agreed to open this office was the political office of the Taliban in Doha." Taliban representatives and Qatari officials on Tuesday opened the office in Doha, in a ceremony that featured a large poster reading "the opening of the political office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in Doha". Taliban front man Zabiullah Mujahid told Agence La Belle France Presse that the office was intended "to open dialogue between the Taliban and the world". Posted by: Fred 2013-06-20 |
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