Panjshir leader says ready to talk with Taliban

The leader of the Afghan opposition group resisting Taliban forces in the Panjshir valley north of Kabul said on Sunday he welcomed proposals from religious scholars for a negotiated settlement to end the fighting.

Ahmad Massoud, head of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRFA), made the announcement on the group’s Facebook page. Earlier, Taliban forces said they had fought their way into the provincial capital of Panjshir after securing the surrounding districts.

Taliban took control of the rest of Afghanistan three weeks ago, taking power in Kabul on August 15 after the Western-backed government collapsed and President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.

“The NRF in principle agree to solve the current problems and put an immediate end to the fighting and continue negotiations,” Massoud said in the Facebook post.

“To reach a lasting peace, the NRF is ready to stop fighting on condition that Taliban also stop their attacks and military movements on Panjshir and Andarab,” he said, referring to a district in the neighbouring province of Baghlan.

A large gathering of all sides with the Ulema council of religious scholars could then be held, he said.

Earlier, Afghan media outlets reported that religious scholars had called on the Taliban to accept a negotiated settlement to end the fighting in Panjshir.

There was no immediate response from the Taliban.

Massoud, who leads a force made up of remnants of regular Afghan army and special forces units as well as local militia fighters, called for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban before the fighting broke out around a week ago.

Several attempts at talks were held but they eventually broke down, with each side blaming the other for their failure.

Taliban spokesman Bilal Karimi said earlier on Sunday that their forces had fought their way into the provincial capital Bazarak and had captured large quantities of weapons and ammunition.

Panjshir, a rugged valley in the mountains north of Kabul that is still littered with the wreckage of Soviet tanks destroyed during the long war in the 1980s to oust the Soviet presence, has proved very difficult to overcome in the past.

Under Massoud’s late father, Ahmad Shah Massoud, the region long resisted control by both the invading Soviet army and by the Taliban government that previously ruled from 1996 to 2001.

But that effort was helped by supply routes leading north to the border, which were closed off by the Taliban’s sweeping victory last month.