A senior Taliban leader has said the Islamist insurgency group “wants peace” in Afghanistan, at an event in Moscow celebrating diplomatic relations between Russia and Afghanistan.
Abdul Ghani Baradar made the comments at the start of an official visit by a Taliban delegation to Moscow. The visit is the latest sign that Russia is becoming an indispensable broker in the 18-year conflict in Afghanistan.
The 14-member delegation, headed by Mr Baradar, the Taliban’s chief negotiator, arrived on Tuesday as part of a two-day tour. It includes an event marking Russia’s diplomatic ties with Afghanistan and informal talks with Afghan politicians, Russian and Taliban representatives said.
“We invited both the Taliban and Afghan politicians to a solemn meeting dedicated to 100 years of diplomatic relations,” Russia’s special envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, told the TASS news agency on Monday. “They have the right and desire to communicate after that, and they will have such an opportunity.”
The Islamist insurgent group’s third visit to Russia in less than one year comes as its leaders have intensified negotiations with the United States over the past few months to agree a drawdown of international troops from Afghanistan.
The Taliban, however, has refused to negotiate with the Afghan government in Kabul, describing it as a “puppet” regime whose terms are dictated by Western diplomats. Talks between the Taliban and Afghan government officials fell through at the last minute in May following disagreements over the size and composition of the Afghan delegation.
The Afghan embassy in Moscow confirmed Ambassador Latif Bahand’s attendance of the ceremony on Tuesday on behalf of the Afghan government, marking a century of diplomatic relations between the countries, but it was not clear whether he would meet members of the Taliban delegation.
Addressing the attendees, former president of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai said: “We, the people of Afghanistan, appreciate Russia’s efforts for hosting talks on Afghan peace.”
According to a statement by the Taliban’s spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid, the delegation will also meet Afghan politicians and elders in Moscow on Wednesday. No further details were specified. A spokesperson for the High Peace Council, a government body responsible for negotiating with the Taliban, confirmed on Monday that its chairperson, Mohammad Karim Khalili, would attend on Tuesday.
“It is expected that these efforts will pave the way for peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban,” HPC spokesman Ghafoor Ahmad Jawed said.
The US has struck out harshly at Russia’s deepening role in the conflict in Afghanistan and its increasingly public relationship with the Taliban. Late last year, the outgoing senior US general in Afghanistan, John Nicholson, accused Russia of trying to “undercut” Washington’s gains.
The US and Afghan government officials have also repeatedly accused Russia of arming the Taliban and providing it with training, claims that officials in Moscow deny.
Russia has redoubled efforts to insert itself as a key player in the resolution of the conflict in Afghanistan, three decades after a Taliban insurgency ousted Soviet forces following a nine-year occupation. It is often described as having precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Union.
