[Tolo News] Government officials announced on Thursday night that official peace talks with the Taliban will start on July 30th.Earlier in the day, 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. ..
discussed the issue while visiting the families of victims of last week's deadly suicide kaboom in eastern Khost province
... across the border from Miranshah, within commuting distance of Haqqani hangouts such as Datta Khel and probably within sight of Mordor. Khost is populated by six different tribes of Pashtuns, the largest probably being the Khostwal, from which it takes its name...
.
The suicide kaboom left at least 27 innocent civilians dead, including women and kiddies.
"Peace is the desire of all people," Ghani said, calling the recent talks held between Afghan government and Taliban representatives in Islamabad a great achievement. "We tried for 14 years to get peace negotiations started but we failed."
The Taliban are Afghans, not foreigners, Ghani told those gathered to here him speak on Thursday. "They should bring us their written concerns because there isn't any issue in the world that cannot be resolved by dialogue. This issue can't be concluded with war," he said.
According to the president, the next round of talks, which are expected to take on more of a negotiating tone, will begin within 15 days, after Eid-al-Fitr. While the last round took place in Islamabad, they next is planned to take place somewhere in China. The government in Beijing has been cited as a crucial source of pressure for getting Pakistain to urge the Taliban toward talks.
The Afghan High Peace Council (HPC), the body formed for the expressed purpose of building bridges of peace between the Afghan government and the Taliban, has said that all arrangements and preparations have been made for the upcoming talks. HPC officials have said that in this next round the Afghan government will ask the Taliban for a ceasefire.
"Efforts have been accelerated for the second round of talks, so that a clear peace agenda is prepared," HPC member Maulavi Shafiullah Shafi Nuristani said on Thursday. "We are also working to prepare the list of negotiators," he added.
According to Mohammad Natiqi, who was a member of the government's peace delegation in Islamabad, efforts have been made to solicit feedback from stakeholders in Afghan society on what priorities should be pursued in the negotiations. "The views of various segments of society that the president has consulted about peace have been gathered in the shape of a book," Natiqi told TOLOnews. "The recommendations of the government of Afghanistan will be enlisted from the same views in the peace negotiation talks."
However,
a hangover is the wrath of grapes...
the number of government peace negotiators expected to participate in the next round of talks has yet to be finalized. On the other hand, it is rumored that the Taliban will attend the next round of talks with more negotiators than it did the first round.