KABUL: Afghan officials on Wednesday denied being in regular talks with Taliban leaders, in response to an AP report based on documents showing that the intelligence chief speaks by telephone with militant leaders nearly every day.
National Security Adviser Mohammed Haneef Atmar issued a statement saying the Afghan government seeks peace but that all negotiations are handled by the High Peace Council. Atmar did not respond to questions sent by e-mail before the story was published, which his office requested when he was first contacted for comment.
In a separate statement, Afghanistan’s intelligence service denied its chief had contacts with Taliban leaders.
The AP report was based on documents describing the conversations that a senior Afghan security official showed the AP. The talks were held with Taliban leaders who were in Pakistan and the Gulf state of Qatar, where the Taliban maintain an office.
In those documents the Taliban set out talking points that would seem to recognize the constitution and elections, a potential breakthrough in longtime peace efforts.
The Taliban talking points called for an interim government, with both sides holding on to the territory they controlled until polls could be held. While accepting women in schools and the workforce, they rejected the idea of a woman serving as president or on the Supreme Court.
The document also revealed a Taliban demand for special courts to oversee thousands of cases alleging that land was taken illegally by the rich and powerful in the post-Taliban era. Many of the landowners are former warlords who are now in the government. The Taliban wants the land returned to those from whom it was taken.
While Afghan officials said neither side was ready to agree to public peace talks, the documents revealed details of the issues discussed.
The Taliban also denied talking to representatives of Afghanistan’s government. When the group was contacted by the AP prior to the article being published they refused to address specifics, saying only that they were not interested in talks.
Afghan officials deny being in talks with Taliban leaders
Afghan officials deny being in talks with Taliban leaders
Rubio says technical talks with Denmark, Greenland officials over Arctic security have begun
- US Secretary of State on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland
WASHINGTON: Technical talks between the US, Denmark and Greenland over hatching an Arctic security deal are now underway, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday.
The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland agreed to create a working group aimed at addressing differences with the US during a Washington meeting earlier this month with Vice President JD Vance and Rubio.
The group was created after President Donald Trump’s repeated calls for the US to take over Greenland, a Danish territory, in the name of countering threats from Russia and China — calls that Greenland, Denmark and European allies forcefully rejected.
“It begins today and it will be a regular process,” Rubio said of the working group, as he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “We’re going to try to do it in a way that isn’t like a media circus every time these conversations happen, because we think that creates more flexibility on both sides to arrive at a positive outcome.”
The Danish Foreign Ministry said Wednesday’s talks focused on “how we can address US concerns about security in the Arctic while respecting the red lines of the Kingdom.” Red lines refers to the sovereignty of Greenland.
Trump’s renewed threats in recent weeks to annex Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of a NATO ally, has roiled US-European relations.
Trump this month announced he would slap new tariffs on Denmark and seven other European countries that opposed his takeover calls, only to abruptly drop his threats after a “framework” for a deal over access to the mineral-rich island was reached, with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s help. Few details of the agreement have emerged.
After stiff pushback from European allies to his Greenland rhetoric, Trump also announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week that he would take off the table the possibility of using American military force to acquire Greenland.
The president backed off his tariff threats and softened his language after Wall Street suffered its biggest losses in months over concerns that Trump’s Greenland ambitions could spur a trade war and fundamentally rupture NATO, a 32-member transatlantic military alliance that’s been a linchpin of post-World War II security.
Rubio on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland.
“We’ve got a little bit of work to do, but I think we’re going to wind up in a good place, and I think you’ll hear the same from our colleagues in Europe very shortly,” Rubio said.
Rubio during Wednesday’s hearing also had a pointed exchange with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, about Trump repeatedly referring to Greenland as Iceland while at Davos.
“Yeah, he meant to say Greenland, but I think we’re all familiar with presidents that have verbal stumbles,” Rubio said in responding to Kaine’s questions about Trump’s flub — taking a veiled dig at former President Joe Biden. “We’ve had presidents like that before. Some made a lot more than this one.”
