Taliban to Japan: Guarantee US troops withdrawal
By Ferdows Rasouli
With the success of the seventh round of talks between the United States and the Taliban, in the most recent case, the Taliban’s high ranking negotiator Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai has said that European and Asian countries, especially Japan, are expected to ensure the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. He said in a conversation with a Japanese media that these countries are expected to guarantee the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan after signing an agreement with the Afghan government. The member of the Taliban negotiating team added: “Based on the plan we will agree on foreign forces withdrawal, an agreement will be signed against the guarantors. I hope that the European and Asian countries guarantee this agreement. In this regard, all parties will decide and Japan is an important country and can be among the guarantors.”
Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai has emphasized that the Taliban will implement articles of agreement with Washington after the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. Stanekzai has also said that holding the Afghan presidential elections while foreign troops are still present in the country is unlawful for the Taliban. He warned the United States that if these elections were held before the peace deal, the Taliban would attack US forces in Afghanistan since it would be illegal to hold any election under the “occupation” of foreign forces; we cannot accept it. ”
The withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan is one of the main preconditions for the Taliban group to come to the negotiating table with the Afghan government. The statement comes at a time when Zalmay Khalilzad, the special US envoy for Afghanistsan and who heads the US delegation with the Taliban, has gone to Washington to share details of the seventh round of talks with US officials. Prior to that he visited China to brief officials there about the latest round of negotiations and also about the intra-Afghan negotiations and the joint statement that emanated from it.
In the course of the seventh round of negotiations between the US and Taliban in Doha, an intra-Afghan dialogue was facilitated by Germany and host Qatar between the Taliban and other Afghan factions, members of civil society, media, which also included women representatives.
(Pasbanan Media Group is the partner organization of International Affairs Review in Kabul)
