Beijing to host two-day talks between Taliban and Afghan officials
Wed 23 October 2019:
China has invited Taliban representatives to participate in a two-day intra-Afghan conference in Beijing after negotiations between the group and the United States to end years of war in Afghanistan collapsed last month.
Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban political spokesman, said on Wednesday that Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s co-founder, met with Chinese diplomats in Doha, where the group has a political office.
“China has invited a delegation … to participate in the intra-Afghan dialogue,” Shaheen said. The conference will take place on October 29 and 30.
Shaheen said the talks in China would be held on that basis.
“All participants will be attending the meeting in their personal capacity and they will share their personal opinions for solving the Afghan issue,” he said.
A spokesman for former Afghan president Hamid Karzai, who attended intra-Afghan talks in Russia in February, said Karzai’s office was aware of China’s plan for talks and Karzai would attend if invited.
A 60-strong delegation of Afghans, including government officials and representatives of civil society groups, held a second round of intra-Afghan talks with the Taliban in July in Qatar.
China shares a 76-kilometre (47-mile) border with the extreme northeastern tip of Afghanistan, in a mountainous area called the Wakhan Corridor on the Afghan side.
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