ISLAMABAD: Afghan Taliban Friday said that the pre-peace talks
Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) are in the process of developing an
understanding between the U.S. and the Taliban.
However, the Taliban spokesman said that no talks have yet been started with Washington.
Replying
to queries through e-mail, Taliban Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid
contradicted that Taliban are engaged in talks for peace with the US and
coalition forces in Qatar or elsewhere.
“We have not yet
reached to the stage of holding peace talks with the international
community. The focus is on initiation of CBMs before the talks for
peace, consensus in this connection is in developing process but so far
even implementation of the measures have not been started,” he further
said.
Certain media reports were claiming that the Qatar talks
have failed and some other said that the US and Taliban are near to an
agreement. Some contradictory reports claimed that detainees were
shifted to Qatar in line with the demands of Taliban but the US after
disagreement over some issues were planning to re-shift the Taliban
prisoners to Guantanamo prison.
The Taliban spokesman reiterated
that they demanded of the media organizations to observe principle of
unbiased and factual reporting in journalism.
“We must say that
some sources and reports of media outlets often try to distort
realities. For this reason we would like to ask all the officials of the
media outlets to work within the framework of unbiased journalistic
ethics, avoid circulating baseless and one-sided reports and only
publish that material which is confirmed by relevant sources,” he said.
He also rebuffed the reports that Taliban negotiators or
representative would hold meeting with Afghan officials representing
Karzai administration in Saudi Arabia. “Saudi Arabia is a sacred land
having holy places and we respect it but we reject the report that
Taliban would meet officials from Kabul in the country in near future,”
he said.
According to the sources the Taliban kicked off talks
with US in Qatar just a week before the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan
held in Germany last year. Taliban were initially avoiding comments on
the talks but later on they accepted that they holding talks for opening
their political office in Qatar and demand for releasing certain
prisoners.
The sources said that negotiators from Taliban’s side
are Tayyab Agha, former head of Taliban Chief Mullah Omer’s office,
Maulvi Dilawar, Taliban’s former diplomat, and probably Mullah Abdul
Aziz, a former first secretary of the defunct regime’s embassy in the
United Arab Emirates and now a businessman in Doha.
Some Sources said that Taliban another diplomat Sohail Shaheen is part of the negotiation as a translator.
Taliban
were demanding release of some of their fellows including Mullah Fazil
Akhund, a former chief of army staff who helped in surrendering part of
Afghanistan in late 2001; Mullah Nurullah Nuri, a former senior governor
in the north, and Mullah Khairullah Khairkhawah, a former interior
minister, all detained in Guantánamo.
Now after certain reports
suspecting results of the ongoing talks in Qatar, Taliban clarified that
the talks are for initiation of CBMs between Taliban and the
international community including the US and it has not failed though
also yet not initiated but in developing process. Online
