Iran on Wednesday hosted the first significant talks in months between Taliban and Afghan government representatives, a surprise meeting that comes as the US completes its withdrawal from Afghanistan and districts fall to the Taliban across the country.
The high-level peace talks between the warring sides follow months-old discussions in Qatar that have been stalled by a diplomatic stalemate and escalating violence.
Even as officials faced each other across vast tables in Tehran and Iran’s top diplomat pledged to end the crisis, fighting surged in Afghanistan’s western Badghis province.
Meanwhile, Pakistan expects some five lakh fresh Afghan refugees in case of a civil war in neighbouring Afghanistan, according to a media report here on Wednesday, amidst the Taliban militants gaining rapid strides in the war-torn country.
The Express Tribune reported that this time the Pakistani authorities insist refugees would be kept at special camps in the bordering areas instead of letting them in the settled parts of the country. Afghan refugees started coming to Pakistan following the invasion by the former Soviet Union in 1979.
After a two-decade-long military campaign, the US military announced on Tuesday that 90 per cent of American troops and equipment had already left the country, with the drawdown set to finish by late August.
Last week, US officials definitively vacated the country’s biggest airfield, Bagram Air Base, the epicenter of the war to oust the Taliban and hunt down the al-Qaida perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America.
The Taliban have made relentless territorial wins since April, when President Joe Biden announced the last 2,500-3,500 US soldiers and 7,000 allied NATO soldiers would depart Afghanistan. With their victories in northern and southern Afghanistan, the Taliban are escalating pressure on provincial cities and gaining control of key transportation routes.
At a recent briefing given to a select group of parliamentarians, the military authorities in Pakistan painted grim prospects of any peace in Afghanistan. People need peace.