- Nineteen prisoners use cutlery to break out of cells at Winchester prison
- France wants progress in Ukraine before Russia returns to G7
- Italy president begins talks to seek way out of government crisis
- Italian PM expected to resign as political chaos deepens
- Russia says US cruise missile test ‘regrettable’
- Kremlin - No date set for Normandy talks on Ukraine despite Macron meeting
- Egypt court hands out 6 death sentences on terror charges
- Putin says Russian nuclear explosion poses no threat
- Russian panel eyes alleged foreign interference in protests
- Gran Canaria wildfire triggers evacuation of thousands of people
- PM Johnson calls on Germany and France to compromise on Brexit
- Sudan's ex-president Bashir arrives at corruption trial
Sunday, 26 July 2020 _Iran has dismissed the “fallacious” remark by a US official that it does not support peace in neighboring Afghanistan, stressing that it backs dialog that is led by Afghans and takes place among Afghans.
The US’s chief negotiator with the Afghan Taliban, Zalmay Khalilzad, said on Friday that Iran had not been adequately supportive of a US-led attempt to get the Taliban militant group and the Afghan government to negotiate.
“Iran has not been as supportive as it should be in the effort to get to intra-Afghan negotiations and an Afghan settlement largely due to our (the US’s) relations with them,” Khalilzad said.
The Iranian Embassy in Kabul responded in a statement on Saturday by saying that the Islamic Republic’s unchanging policy was to support the establishment of a peace that was “based on the outcomes of intra-Afghan negotiations, which are owned and led by Afghans [themselves].”
The Iranian diplomatic mission advised American officials to “carefully study the positions of Iranian officials about regional issues and Afghanistan before making comments [about those positions].”
The US has reached a deal with the Taliban to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan. While the deal imposes obligations on the Afghan government, negotiations that led to the agreement did not involve Afghan government representatives. The Taliban said openly at the time of the negotiations that they did not recognize the Afghan government. They have refused to make such a recognition publicly as of yet, even though they have been carrying out a prisoner exchange with Kabul under the deal more recently.
The US deal also does not obligate an end to Taliban attacks on the Afghan government and people.
Khalilzad, himself of Afghan origin, negotiated that deal for America.
Iran has opposed the US military occupation of Afghanistan and has expressed readiness to cooperate with any effort for intra-Afghan dialog.
Your Comment