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| Afghanistan |
| Afghans and Taliban representatives meet in Pakistan for peace talks |
| 2015-07-08 |
| [WASHINGTONPOST] Representatives of the Taliban were meeting with an Afghan government delegation Tuesday in the Pak capital of Islamabad, in what Afghan officials hope will be a step toward negotiating a peace deal with the Lion of Islam group and ending the country's protracted war, according to Afghan and Pak officials. I thought this might happen, with the Islamic State rearing its ugly turban in Nangarhar. Now they've got a common enemy. The gathering, under discussion for several weeks, is not the first time both sides have met to discuss a cease-fire. Several other meetings between Taliban representatives and Afghan officials have taken place in recent months in Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates... , China and Norway. But the meeting in Islamabad carries more significance because of Pakistain's long-standing ties to the Taliban, as well as Afghanistan's Caped President Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. 's efforts to persuade Pakistain to play a significant role in convincing the Taliban to come to the negotiating table. It would mark the first time that such a senior-level delegation was meeting face-to-face with the Taliban. "We have always had a pretty clear view of what Pakistain can and cannot do in terms of delivering the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table," a U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss the peace efforts, said in a recent interview. "But we see, at this point, a sustained effort by the Paks to support President Ghani's effort." |
| Posted by:Fred |