Afghan President Hamid Karzai's High Peace Council has held meetings with a breakaway faction of senior Taliban leaders in the United Arab Emirates, officials said Saturday. The Dubai meetings are the first, fresh Afghan-initiated efforts to restart peace talks aimed at bringing a negotiated end to the conflict ahead of the final withdrawal of international combat troops due at the end of this year. But they also reflect deepening divisions among Taliban leadership.
The High Peace Council said in a statement Saturday that the delegation it met with clearly had indicated they were ready for peace talks and that both sides agreed on the need for further dialogue both inside and outside of Afghanistan. While the High Peace Council did not say who was represented in each delegation, Mohtisim confirmed his group's participation in a statement issued to The Associated Press.
Mohtism said that recent talks in Dubai among Taliban leadership had resulted in a consensus and willingness to end the conflict through an intra-Afghan dialogue, which resulted in the recent meeting with a delegation from Karzai's High Peace Council. That meeting was held in an "atmosphere of peace and sincerity and with due determination towards an everlasting peace and establishing an Islamic system," he said.
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