Ayesha Tanzeem VOA News March 19, 2018 ISLAMABAD — The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan said a combination of religious, social, diplomatic and military pressure will be applied to the Taliban this year to force them to start negotiating for peace in the war-torn country. General John Nicholson, who is leading U.S. and NATO forces
Mohammad Habibzada VOA News March 18, 2018 WASHINGTON — The Afghan Taliban say they are deeply skeptical that a proposed three-nation conference in Indonesia will be a step toward peace. Jakarta is preparing to host a trilateral conference where religious scholars from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Indonesia would seek ways to bring peace to war-torn Afghanistan. But
Ayaz Gul VOA News March 18, 2018 ISLAMABAD — Pakistan has conveyed to the leadership in Afghanistan its opinion that the Taliban are left with no “excuse or justification for continuing war” following Kabul’s offer of unconditional peace talks. Islamabad’s National Security Adviser, Nasser Janjua, delivered the message during a daylong official visit Saturday, where he
Michael Hughes: Outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson largely paid lip service to the Afghan peace process as evidenced by his State Department’s utter failure to establish a diplomatic track for ending the conflict. However, President Donald Trump’s decision to tap CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace Tillerson may have driven the final nail into
VOA News Ayaz Gul March 15, 2018 ISLAMABAD — The Afghan Taliban’s silence to the latest offer of unconditional talks by the Kabul government has raised hopes in Islamabad and Washington the insurgent group may be mulling over joining the peace process. Previous offers of negotiations had been promptly rejected. Pakistani military leaders contend their renewed
Press TV March 14, 2018 The top commander of US forces in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, says now is the “best time” for peace negotiations with the Taliban, because after years of war, the militant group is weary of an impasse in the battlefield. Nicholson, however, acknowledged that peace talks, which the Taliban definitively rejected
Ayaz Gul VOA News March 7, 2018 ISLAMABAD — The Taliban’s persistent silence to a widely praised week-old dialogue offer by the Afghan government prompted President Ashraf Ghani to repeat the overture and call Wednesday for the insurgents to seek resolution of issues without further bloodshed. Inaugurating the new session of the Afghan parliament, the president
Reuters: Uzbekistan wants to establish a new venue for peace talks between the government of neighboring Afghanistan and the Taliban, it said Tuesday, having invited the world’s top diplomats to a conference later this month. Click here to read more (external link).
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty March 6, 2018 The United States is calling on the Taliban to give “serious” consideration to an offer for peace talks extended by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani last week. Alice Wells, a U.S. principal deputy assistant secretary of state in charge of South and Central Asian affairs, told reporters in Washington
Press TV March 4, 2018 The Afghan government’s surprising new peace offer to Taliban is immediately running into a wall as the militants show no sign of shifting from their demand that talks for a conflict-ending compromise take place with Washington, not Kabul, a media report says. Top Afghan security officials, who maintain back-channel discussions