ISLAMABAD: Russia has invited Pakistan to a conference on the Afghanistan peace process planned in Moscow on March 18, the TASS news agency said on Tuesday, but the United States State Department did not confirm American attendance.
Russia’s special envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov said that the US, China, Pakistan, Kabul, and the Taliban have been invited to attend the expanded trilateral consultations on peaceful settlement in the war-torn country, TASS reported.
“It is not even a conference, it is consultations of the expanded trio: Russia, the US, China, and Pakistan. Yes, we have invited [Afghan] government representatives, Afghan statesmen, and the Taliban delegation as well,” Kabulov said.
The Russian envoy visited Pakistan last month to encourage Islamabad’s support for the meeting to help facilitate the stalled peace process. He had told Sputnik news agency that he hopes his visit will encourage Pakistan’s support for the meeting.
The TASS report comes after the United States shared with Afghan officials, Taliban leaders and others a draft peace plan calling for replacing the government with a power-sharing interim administration pending elections under a new constitution.
The US proposal is intended to jump-start stalled talks in Doha between the Taliban and a team that includes Afghan officials on a political settlement to decades of conflict.
Moscow also has advocated a transitional power-sharing government as part of a peace deal. Russia’s special representative on Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, told the Sputnik in February that Moscow was ready to host intra-Afghan peace talks to break the stalemate in Doha.
The peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government-sanctioned team, which started last September, stalled after several months of bickering and little progress.
Although Russia says it is trying to push for a meaningful dialogue between the Afghan factions, parts of Kabulov’s interview with Sputnik, especially his suggestion of the need for an interim government set up that includes the Taliban, provoked a strong reaction from Kabul.
TASS said that the Russian Foreign Ministry planned to hold the conference on Afghanistan on March 18 but gave no further details.
A US State Department spokesperson noted that “the United States has met in the past with Russia in support of the Afghanistan peace process. Recently we have discussed scheduling a meeting, but the United States has nothing to confirm at this time”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote last week in a letter to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that the United States would ask Turkey to host “a senior-level meeting of both sides in coming weeks to finalise a peace agreement”.
The United States is facing a May 1 deadline for withdrawing the last 2,500 US troops from Afghanistan under a deal signed with the Taliban by the former Trump administration.
With additional input from Reuters
