Additional Secretary at Foreign Office Muhammad Aejaz, who led Pakistani delegation at the four-party consultation in Afghanistan in Moscow on Friday, has said the participants pushed for resumption of the peace negotiations between the United States and the Taliban to end the conflict in Afghanistan.
Special envoys from China, Russia, the US and Pakistan took part in consultations on Afghan peace weeks after US President Donald Trump abruptly called off talks with the Taliban last month, citing killing of an American soldier in a Taliban-claimed suicide attack in Kabul.
Aejaz told Russian Sputnik news agency in Moscow that it will only be natural for the US-Taliban talks to continue after so much understanding had been reached and “a lot of effort has been put in it.” “There is a general hope that it needs to be restarted because the progress that has been achieved after painstaking efforts by the two sides – the US and the Taliban – in nine rounds of talks is something very important,” the Pakistani diplomat said.
The special representatives of Russia, China and the US held their fourth consultation on the Afghan peace process. Russia, China, the US and Pakistan also held the second round of four-party consultations. The first four-party meeting was held in Beijing in July.
A joint statement said Russia, China and Pakistan expressed their support for the earliest resumption of negotiation process and reaching an agreement between the United States of America and the Taliban movement, which will pave the way for launching intra-Afghan talks.
The 15-point statement said the participants committed to work with Afghanistan, both government leaders and others, and the Taliban to reach a comprehensive and sustainable peace agreement that ends the war for the benefit of all Afghans and that contributes to regional stability and global security.
They urged all sides involved in the Afghan conflict to immediately reduce violence in order to create an environment conducive for negotiations. They confirmed that a sustainable peace can be achieved only through a negotiated political settlement.
Besides Aejaz, US representative for Afghan reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, Chinese special envoy for Afghanistan, Deng Xijun, and Russian special envoy, Zamir Kabulov, attended the meeting.
