Tolo News: The Afghan government has asked the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to lift sanctions against Hizb-e-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who forged a peace deal with government early in September. In response about Hizb-e-Islami’s steps after sanctions are lifted against Hekmatyar, a Hizb-e-Islami spokesman, Hashmatullah Arshad, said it will take time but it will happen.
Ayaz Gul VOA News December 8, 2016 ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan’s Taliban has demanded official recognition for its political office in Qatar, direct talks with the United States and removal of senior members from a U.N. blacklist, describing these as preliminary steps to peacefully ending its insurgency. A Qatar-based Taliban spokesman, Sohail Shaheen, has asserted the presence
Tolo News: Nangarhar governor Gulab Mangal on Tuesday said the Hizb-e-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar will move to the province in the near future and they are ready to welcome him. Mangal said Hekmatyar will live in Nangarhar until his name has been removed from the UN’s black list. The governor said they have allocated a house
The New York Times: Breaking with nearly 15 years of public silence, Sayed Muhammad Tayeb Agha, who until recently was the Taliban’s chief negotiator and head of their political commission, issued a letter about peace talks to the insurgency’s supreme leader over the summer and discussed reconciliation efforts in an interview with The New York Times
Following the peace deal with its leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the HIG’s chief negotiator speaks to Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera: On September 29, the Afghan government signed a peace agreement with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the Hezb-i-Islami party, also known as HIG. Hekmatyar, in hiding since 1997, has been on the US state department’s list of
Tolo News: A dissident Taliban faction led by Mullah Abdul Manan Niazi on Wednesday said that Pakistan made deliberate attempts to take the Afghan peace process hostage, adding that Taliban will no longer take directions from the Pakistani military generals. Referring to a recent peace agreement signed between the Afghan government and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar-led Hizb-e-Islami party, Niazi
Ayaz Gul VOA News October 18, 2016 ISLAMABAD — The Taliban has formally refuted reports of secret meetings with Afghan government officials, insisting there has been no change in the group’s policy for holding peace negotiations. The Guardian newspaper, in an exclusive article published Tuesday, quoted anonymous Afghan officials and sources within the Taliban as confirming
Ayaz Gul VOA News October 18, 2016 ISLAMABAD — Senior Afghan government and Taliban representatives reportedly have held at least two secret meetings in recent days in a bid to resume a long-awaited peace dialogue to end the war in Afghanistan. A source within the National Unity Government (NUG) in Kabul has confirmed to VOA the
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty October 5, 2016 U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has urged the Taliban to follow the recent example of an Afghan warlord and strike its own peace deal with the Kabul government. Speaking in Brussels at an international donors conference for Afghanistan on October 5, Kerry said that “there is a
Michael Hughes: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on September 29 consummated a peace agreement with notorious warlord and internationally-designated terrorist Gulbidden Hekmatyar, who is renowned for being the only prime minister in history to bomb his own nation’s capital. The immediate and obvious question is: Why? Why strike a peace deal with an exiled war criminal who