PESHAWAR: The head of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, Mohammad Daudzai, will arrive in Pakistan next week to meet with senior Pakistani officials and push forward peace talks with the Taliban, his spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Afghanistan and the US have long pushed Pakistan to use its influence with the Taliban to bring them to the table for talks to end the 17-year war.
Sayed Ihsan Taheri, council spokesman, told Arab News that Daudzai would be in Pakistan “next week to hold talks with Pakistani officials on regional issues,” but declined to specify an exact date.
Taheri said Daudzai would exchange views with Pakistani officials regarding developments in Taliban peace talks and his government’s position on the latest efforts to bring the militants to the negotiating table.
“Pakistan can prove significant in promoting peace parlays,” Taheri said.
Zardasht Shams, the deputy head of mission at the Afghan embassy in Islamabad, told Arab News he had no details yet of Daudzai’s visit.
“A date for the meeting has yet to be set,” he said.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs could not be reached for comment.
Daudzai’s visit comes amid intensified efforts toward peace negotiations in Afghanistan.
Last month, representatives from the Taliban, the US and regional countries met for talks in the UAE. So far, the Taliban has refused to hold formal talks with the Afghan government, which they consider an illegitimate foreign-appointed regime.
The groups says it will first reach an agreement with the US, which it sees as the main force in Afghanistan since US-led forces toppled the Taliban government in 2001.
The US, on the other hand, insists any final settlement must be led by the Afghans.
Representatives from the Taliban’s Qatar office have recently attended peace talks in China, Germany, France and other countries. Last Sunday, Iran confirmed a Taliban delegation visited Tehran to advance peace talks in the neighboring country.
Hikmat Safi, an adviser to Afghanistan’s Chief Executive, Abdullah Abdullah, said Daudzai’s planned visit to Islamabad was of paramount importance because Afghan peace talks had recently gained considerable momentum. He said Afghans expected a “cease-fire” in the country after the meeting scheduled between the Taliban and the US in Saudi Arabia next month.
Last week, the Taliban rejected Kabul’s offer of talks in Saudi Arabia.
The Pakistan army has thrown its support behind the latest US efforts for a political settlement and urged Washington to retain Kabul as a friend in the region rather than a “failure.”
“We will facilitate talks as much as we can,” Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor, army spokesman, told reporters last month.
Head of Afghan peace council due in Pakistan next week
Head of Afghan peace council due in Pakistan next week
- Daudzai will ‘discuss Taliban peace talks with Pakistani officials’
- Afghan embassy says there are no details into Daudzai’s trip as yet
Second death in Minneapolis crackdown heaps pressure on Trump
- Federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, early Saturday while scuffling with him on an icy roadway in the Midwestern city
MINNEAPOLIS: The Trump administration faced intensifying pressure Sunday over its mass immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, after federal agents shot dead a second US citizen and graphic cell phone footage again contradicted officials’ immediate description of the incident.
Federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, early Saturday while scuffling with him on an icy roadway in the Midwestern city, less than three weeks after an immigration officer fired on Renee Good, also 37, killing her in her car.
President Donald Trump’s administration quickly claimed that Pretti had intended to harm the federal agents — as it did after Good’s death — pointing to a pistol it said was discovered on him.
However, video shared widely on social media and verified by US media showed Pretti never drawing a weapon, with agents firing around 10 shots at him seconds after he was sprayed in the face with chemical irritant and thrown to the ground.
The video further inflamed ongoing protests in Minneapolis against the presence of federal agents, with around 1,000 people participating in a demonstration Sunday.
After top officials described Pretti as an “assassin” who had assaulted the agents, Pretti’s parents issued a statement Saturday condemning the administration’s “sickening lies” about their son.
Asked Sunday what she would say to Pretti’s parents, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said: “Just that I’m grieved for them.”
“I truly am. I can’t even imagine losing a child,” she told Fox News show “The Sunday Briefing.”
She said more clarity would come as an investigation progresses.
US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, speaking to NBC’s “Meet the Press,” also said an investigation was necessary to get a full understanding of the killing.
Asked if agents had already removed the pistol from Pretti when they fired on him, Blanche said: “I do not know. And nobody else knows, either. That’s why we’re doing an investigation.”
‘Joint’ probe
Their comments came after multiple senators from Trump’s Republican Party called for a thorough probe into the killing, and for cooperation with local authorities.
“There must be a full joint federal and state investigation,” Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said.
The Trump administration controversially excluded local investigators from a probe into Good’s killing.
Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz posed a question directly to the president during a press briefing Sunday, asking: “What’s the plan, Donald Trump?“
“What do we need to do to get these federal agents out of our state?“
Thousands of federal immigration agents have been deployed to heavily Democratic Minneapolis for weeks, after conservative media reported on alleged fraud by Somali immigrants.
Trump has repeatedly amplified the racially tinged accusations, including on Sunday when he posted on his Truth Social platform: “Minnesota is a Criminal COVER UP of the massive Financial Fraud that has gone on!“
The city, known for its bitterly cold winters, has one of the country’s highest concentrations of Somali immigrants.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison pushed back against Trump’s claim, telling reporters “it’s not about fraud, because if he sent people who understand forensic accounting, we’d be having a different conversation. But he’s sending armed masked men.”
Court order
Since “Operation Metro Surge” began, many residents have carried whistles to notify others of the presence of immigration agents, while sometimes violent skirmishes have broken out between the officers and protesters.
Local authorities have sued the federal government seeking a court order to suspend the operation, with a first hearing set for Monday.
Recent polling has shown voters increasingly upset with Trump’s domestic immigration operations, as videos of masked agents seizing people off sidewalks — including children — and dramatic stories of US citizens being detained proliferate.
Barack and Michelle Obama on Sunday forcefully condemned Pretti’s killing, saying in a statement it should be a “wake-up call” that core US values “are increasingly under assault.”
The former president and first lady blasted Trump and his government as seeming “eager to escalate the situation.”
