Afghan politicians, Taliban meet in Doha as fighting continues

KABUL: Afghan politicians met with representatives of the Taliban in Qatar on Saturday with each side calling for peace even as fighting escalates and uproots thousands of people.

Two decades of conflict have taken a turn for the worse as US-led international forces withdraw and the Taliban launch offensives around Afghanistan, taking districts and border crossings while encircling provincial capitals.

Negotiators have been meeting in Doha since September but failed to make substantive progress with time running out before foreign troops’ full exit by Sept. 11.

“Let’s … take important steps to continue the peace process, to prevent the killing of the people,” Abdullah Abdullah, head of the government’s High Council for National Reconciliation, said at the start of new high-level talks intended to last two days.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s deputy leader and negotiator, regretted lack of progress. “But there should still be hope and the Taliban will make efforts for talks to have positive result,” he said.

In the latest impact of fighting, around 12,000 families in northern Takhar province have had to flee their homes as fighting continues, local officials said.

More than 2,000 people were displaced in Kandahar this month, according to the United Nations’ humanitarian agency, and Kandahar’s provincial governor on Friday evening declared a curfew in Kandahar city at night due to the fighting.

The UN refugee agency estimates 270,000 Afghans have been displaced inside the country since January, bringing the number of people forced from their homes to more than 3.5 million.