KABUL - Second Vice President Sarwar Danish said Monday that the Afghan government would never give in to “extremism” nor to an “Emirate” system.
Danish stated that the Taliban wants to subdue the people of Afghanistan and the government through the use of violence; therefore. He said this was the reason the group was reluctant to take part in peace talks.
Speaking at an event in Kabul on Monday, Danish stated: “The government will preserve and defend the achievements of the last two decades in the country and will never give in to extremism and Emirate of Taliban.”
“The enemy of the country (Taliban) wants to subdue the government and people of Afghanistan; But the people have chosen their path and they would never give in to extremism,” Danish said.
According to him, the Taliban refuse to sit at the negotiating tables and they “continue to attack, terrorize and [carry out] violence against the people of Afghanistan.”
However, last week the Taliban met with members of the Afghan Republic’s talk team and agreed that negotiations need to resume.
In a tweet posted by the Afghan Republic’s negotiating team, they said a meeting was held in Doha between the delegations of both negotiating sides on Friday.
“In addition to Eid greetings the two sides discussed the on-going situation of the country and emphasized speeding up the peace talks in Doha.
“Both parties emphasized restart of the peace talks after Eid,” the Republic’s negotiating team tweeted.
The Taliban’s Qatar spokesman Mohammad Naeem echoed this in his own tweet.
Sources have meanwhile said in the past few weeks that the Taliban will not resume talks until the release of 7,000 of their prisoners and until the names of their leaders have been removed from the UN Security Council’s blacklist.
Mawlawi Qalamuddin, a former Taliban member said: “They (Taliban) will not attend any meeting until their prisoners are released.”
The Taliban has also refused to attend the US-proposed and UN-moderated Istanbul Conference.
This meeting was planned for early April but was postponed after the Taliban reportedly refused to participate on the ground of foreign troops still being present in the country. The talks had been called to fast-track an agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban after US President Joe Biden announced the withdrawal of US troops from the country by mid-September. (ATN)