DOHA: A Taliban office, touted as a tool to help facilitate talks between the militants and the Afghan government, opens here today, Al Jazeera television reported.
Al Jazeera cited anonymous sources for its yesterday’s report and gave no details but a Taliban spokesman in Kabul said he was “unaware” of any such development.
In April, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that the opening of a Taliban office in Doha could “facilitate the peace process”.
He made the remarks in an interview with Al Jazeera following talks with the Emir H H Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani in Doha.
Karzai previously opposed a Taliban office in Qatar over fears that his government would be frozen out of any future peace deal involving the extremists and the US.
The militants refuse to have direct contact with Karzai, calling him a puppet of the US which supported his rise to power after the military operation that toppled the Taliban in 2001.
But with US-led Nato combat troops due to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, Karzai recently backed the proposed office in Doha.
Any peace talks still face numerous hurdles before they begin, including confusion over who would represent the Taliban and Karzai’s insistence that his appointees should be at the centre of negotiations.
Talks have been underway since 2011 to open a Taliban office in Qatar. Agencies
