News / Afghanistan

Taliban wants to be removed from UN blacklist before new peace talks

Saturday, 23 January 2016 5:22 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 23 January 2016 5:22 PM ]

Former Afghan Taliban militants carry weapons before handing them over as part of a government peace and reconciliation process at a ceremony in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, January 12, 2016. (AFP photo)

The Taliban militant group says it wants to be removed from the blacklist of the United Nations as a condition for rejoining peace talks for an end to the conflict in Afghanistan.

“We conveyed them to first remove us from the ‎blacklist of the United Nations and allow us to freely travel around the world and then we can think about holding peace talks,” said an unidentified Taliban member during unofficial talks with activists and former Afghan officials in the Qatari capital of Doha on Saturday.

Taliban has reemerged as a strong militant group over the past months as it has managed to capture some key areas in the north and south of Afghanistan. The militants also carry out attacks in the capital, Kabul. That has prompted renewed efforts in the country and by neighbors to revive stalled negotiations between the militant group and the Afghan government.

Pakistan mediated the first round of talks in the summer of 2015, but a planned second meeting was cancelled after news broke that Taliban’s founder and long-time leader Mullah Omar had died two years ago.

Many suspect that Taliban could reappear on the negotiating table as factional infighting and leadership division has deepened in the group since the death of Omar.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said Saturday that representatives of the group had attended the unofficial talks in Doha to express the views of the group on how the situation in the country should be handled.

“The meeting is providing us an opportunity to express our views about the future of Afghanistan,” said Mujahid, without elaborating on the condition set by other senior members about removal of Taliban from the UN blacklist.

Officials from former Afghan administrations who attended the talks said Taliban has yet to make a concrete demand.

“So far they have not proposed any concrete ideas about how to move forward. Hopefully by tomorrow we will know if they want peace and if so what their conditions are,” said Anwar Ahady, a former minister of finance.

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