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to protest demands that they remove a sign that identified the movement as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, a diplomat and a Taliban official said on Tuesday.
Who the hell told you that I think like that??this your self-conclusion...
The office was opened for some wrong and trouble making intentions; good that it's closed.
Next time they open an office all the stake holders must be involved Afghan gov, opposition, US and Pakistan.
It really looked funny when they inaugurated the office with Qatari secretary.
That why it is concerning Indians so much, Such things ought to happen in negotiations right ?
Next time they open an office all the stake holders must be involved Afghan gov, opposition, US and Pakistan.
Looks like you still didn't get it.
This office was never meant to be for peace in Afghanistan. The Afghan govt wasn't ever part of it. This was only a US-Taliban peace broker so that the US pulls out safely and no sh!t happens. Afghanistan was never in the picture.
Best would be formalizing the Taliban's Quetta office.
@Aeronaut @nuclearpak @Oscar i think we should confirm thew news first as it seems dawn is the only one which made this report live and than hindtimes and cbsnews copied it over. If this had been the case it would have been all over the news like wsj,nyt,wp etc.
Do we have names of Afghan Taliban and reason for calling them Taliban?
The identities and backgrounds of the delegation’s key members — and thus some of the Taliban leadership’s aims in choosing them — can now be detailed based on interviews with four disparate officials and on public appearances by the group in Qatar. The sources include a member of the Quetta Shura, the Taliban’s leadership council in Pakistan; a Taliban military commander from eastern Afghanistan; a former Taliban official; and a Western official in Kabul who is close to the Doha talks and spoke about the delegation’s general approach. All included the same nine key names, though their lists differed slightly in other ways.
“Every single member of the delegation has been picked by the leadership council after a long series of lengthy discussions and sometimes tense talks,” said the eastern Taliban military commander. “There were certain criteria they should meet. First was loyalty to Mullah Muhammad Omar. Second was having experience in diplomacy. Third was speaking at least one foreign language, either English or Arabic.”
Among the delegation are six former diplomats, five ex-ministers or deputy ministers, and four preachers — one of them so admired for his oratory that the Qatari defense minister is said to be in the congregation when he makes guest appearances at his mosque.
They are all seen as close adherents of Mullah Omar. One, Tayeb Agha, the apparent leader of the delegation, was his secretary and chief of staff. Another, Hafiz Aziz Rahman Ahadi, is the son of Mullah Omar’s teacher at his madrassa in Quetta, Pakistan.
“All of the representatives that we selected and sent to Qatar for peace talks belong to the political wing,” said the Quetta Shura member. “None have a military background. We don’t need to send commanders: we are not fighting in Qatar. We are fighting in Afghanistan.”
While there are some two dozen Taliban officials here — along with their families, they number a couple of hundred people in all — most are administrative and support staff.
The emissaries are by Taliban leadership standards relatively young, mostly in their 40s. Tayeb Agha is apparently the youngest, at age 37 or 38.
Although Mr. Agha is reportedly a fluent English speaker, he was not speaking out for the group last week. That role was filled by Sohail Shaheen, a former second secretary in the Taliban’s embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan. He gave a flurry of interviews to Al Jazeera and Japanese and other Arab news outlets after the office was opened, but when the Afghan government threatened to pull the plug, he went quiet.
“We really want to talk,” he said in a brief phone conversation, speaking fluent English with a trace of a Pakistani accent, “but until we decide on our answer, there is nothing we can say.”
Pakistan will not let anyone formalize that office but can open an office in any diplomatic enclave inside Islamabad.