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Taliban reportedly ready for peace talks with US

February 19, 2015

There are reports that the Taliban Islamist militant group is set to hold talks with US officials on ending the 13-year conflict in Afghanistan. The US, however, denied talks were scheduled.

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Image: Getty Images/Afp/Aref Karimi

News agencies on Thursday cited unnamed sources from the Afghan Taliban, who said that preliminary talks between its representatives and US officials could be held as soon as later the same day.

"The first session will take place today in Qatar and then there would be another session on Friday. Let us see what happens as talks before did not yield any results," the Reuters news agency quoted a senior member of the Afghan Taliban as saying. AFP also cited an unnamed official, who said the first meeting would be held later on Thursday.

Reuters also quoted an unnamed senior military official from neighboring Pakistan who said that while the Taliban had expressed a willingness to hold talks nobody was under any illusion that the negotiations would be easy.

"But there are very clear signals ... and we have communicated it to the Afghans. Now many things are with the Afghans and they are serious," the official said.

Later on Thursday, however, an official from the United States told Reuters that no peace talks were scheduled.

"The United States currently has no meetings with the Taliban scheduled in Doha," said Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the White House's National Security Council. "We remain supportive of an Afghan-led reconciliation process whereby the Taliban and the Afghans engage in talks toward a settlement to resolve the conflict in Afghanistan."

Previous attempt a non-starter

An attempt to open peace talks in Qatar two years ago never got off the ground the government of then-Afghan President Hamid Karzai objected to fanfare surrounding the opening of an embassy-style office in the Gulf state.

Taliban militants have stepped up their attacks on Afghan police and soldiers in recent months, particularly since the United States and the Western military alliance ended its combat mission in the country at the end of last year. Around 13,000 foreign troops, mostly American, have remained in the country to help train the Afghan forces.

A report released by the United Nations on Wednesday said almost 3,700 civilians were killed and almost 7,000 others wounded in Afghanistan in 2014, making it the country's worst year in terms of casualties since 2009.

pfd/sms (Reuters, AP, AFP, dpa)