AFGHANISTAN. Kabul: Following the recent efforts by Zalmai Khalilzad, the US special envoy for Afghanistan peace visited Kabul today to talk with the Afghan leaders including Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the Peace Council for National Reconciliation, and President Ashraf Ghani.
The Office for Higher Peace Council of National Reconciliation says Khalilzad traveled to Kabul to talk with Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the council, and other members, over the ongoing efforts for peace talks.
Sources from the council say the main agenda of their meeting is the upcoming Istanbul conference which is expected to be held on April, 16.
Afghans preparing for the Turkey conference
Khalilzad’s trip comes as the council has wrapped up the review of at least 25 peace proposals, which was previously announced by the council to be at least 30 proposals, including the Afghan President Ghani’s peace proposal, by a 15-member committee of political leaders and high-ranking officials.
Meanwhile, the council has recently said it will unite all the views in Afghanistan with a proposal by Saturday, to attend the Turkey conference with a unified stance. The committee was scheduled to hold its last meeting on Saturday (today) to review the views offered.
The date for the conference has not been revealed publicly so far, but Afghan officials say that Khalilzad has shared the details of the event with negotiators of the Afghan republic and the Taliban in Doha, Qatar.
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Support for Turkey Conference
On Friday, hundreds of people, political leaders, lawmakers, and religious dignitaries gathered at Ghazi Football Stadium in Kabul to raise their hate toward further violence in the country and expressed their support for the upcoming UN-led conference on Afghanistan in Turkey.
The participants in the stadium recalled the upcoming summit in Turkey as a unique chance for peace and said that Afghanistan’s values and gains in the areas of women’s rights, elections, press freedom, and democratic principles reflected in the Constitution should be preserved. They also issued a declaration in which they called on the UN to consider their demands in the Turkey conference.
