ISLAMABAD: A key member of the Taliban has called for an end to the 10-year war in Afghanistan and for peace talks, demanding prisoner releases and an end to sanctions on rebel leaders to quicken the process.
| "This is what you give us up front. Now let's talk about what we'll give you in return." |
“All sides should stop fighting and solve all their differences through dialogue and negotiations,” wrote Mullah Agha Jan Motasim, who until 2009 headed the political committee and is still influential in some Taliban circles, in a statement sent to AFP.
Motasim, who was finance minister in the 1996-2001 Taliban regime, welcomed “important preliminary steps” from all sides, such as the lifting of UN sanctions on former regime members, and said that as a result the Taliban were “inclined towards dialogue”. But he called on the UN and US to remove remaining Taliban names from the blacklist and demanded the immediate release of Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay.
“We believe that such steps of international community would help in bringing peace and stability and would become a source of persuading leaders of Islamic Emirate,” he wrote. |