Russia on Friday said that the Taliban should be included in any Afghan interim administration, before a conference in Moscow aimed at supporting peace talks between the group and Afghanistan’s government.
Moscow is set to host a conference on Afghanistan on March 18 and has invited several regional players, including Taliban representatives.
According to Al-Jazeera, the meeting is seen as the Kremlin’s latest effort to cement its role as a broker in the conflict, decades after the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan ended.
It comes at a crucial time for the peace process before a May 1 deadline for foreign troops to withdraw from Afghanistan.
The United States has drafted a peace plan calling for the current Afghan government to be replaced with an interim administration until a new constitution is agreed and elections held, but Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has refused to step aside for a transitional government.
“The formation of an interim coalition government should be decided by the Afghans themselves during national reconciliation negotiations,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters at her weekly briefing.
“At the same time, we have noted that the formation of an interim, inclusive administration would be a logical solution to the problem of integrating the Taliban into Afghanistan’s peaceful political life.”
The US-drafted peace plan suggests that under the interim Afghan administration, the National Assembly could either be expanded to include members of the Taliban or suspended until after the election.
Moscow has said its conference next week is meant to support peace talks held in Doha, which have struggled to yield any breakthroughs.
A source close to the Taliban told the Reuters news agency, on condition of anonymity, that a team of four or five members of the Taliban’s political office in Doha would attend the Moscow conference.
Source: Al-Jazeera
