Afghan Taliban announced on Sunday that their scheduled meeting with representatives of United States in Islamabad today (Monday) got postponed. The announcement comes on the same day Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman arrived on a two days state visit to the country. Security sources claimed the Taliban delegation was also expected to meet the Crown Prince, besides meeting Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Though, Taliban cited most of its members of the negotiation team being on the UN and US travel sanction ban as the reason behind postponement of the meeting, yet reports maintained that the statements by certain US authorities in the wake of Pulwama attack led to postponement of the meeting.
However, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid, in a statement on Sunday, rejected the reports of the meeting being cancelled on any other reason, saying: "the Islamic Emirate [Taliban] had arranged for their representatives to participate but unfortunately, most members of the negotiations team were unable to travel due to the US and UN blacklist and the meeting was postponed".
He stated that the meeting was scheduled to take place between the negotiation team of the Taliban and a delegation of United States on 18 February 2019 in Islamabad.
"It should be reminded that the delay was not related to the Islamic Emirate [Taliban] because the Islamic Emirate had held complete preparations for the meeting", he added.
The top US negotiator and Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Zalmay Khalizad was in Afghanistan on Sunday to discuss the peace process with the Afghan leadership. Khalizad's next destination was Islamabad for the scheduled meeting with the Taliban delegation and sources said that with the postponement of the meeting, his visit also got postponed.
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