A Taliban official said on Thursday that progress has been made during talks with a group of senior Afghan politicians in Moscow, but that there had been no breakthrough, meaning further talks would be needed.
The delegation, led by chief Taliban negotiator Abdul Ghani Baradar, met Afghan politicians, including senior regional leaders and candidates challenging President Ashraf Ghani in this year's presidential election amid gathering diplomatic efforts to end the 18-year war.
A statement issued by the talk’s participants said the sides “discussed the continuation of intra-Afghan talks” and “foreign troop withdrawal” among other issues, but added that no agreement was made "because reaching agreements needed more discussions".
"Yes, we are satisfied, they (the negotiations) were successful," Muhammad Sohail Shahin, a Taliban spokesperson, was cited as saying by the Russian state-run RIA Novosti news agency.
The visit to Moscow by 14 members of the Taliban was part of a two-day tour that included an event on Tuesday marking 100 years of diplomatic relations between Russia and Afghanistan. Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai and Kabul’s ambassador to Russia attended the ceremony.
Members of the extremist insurgent group have visited Russia three times in the last year in a sign of Russia’s deepening role as a broker in the decades-long conflict. The latest visit comes as Taliban leaders have intensified efforts to negotiate a drawdown of some 14,000 American troops in Afghanistan with United States officials.
US officials have accused the Kremlin of muddying the waters of their negotiations with the Taliban and arming the insurgent group, claims which Moscow denies.
Senior Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar reiterated on Tuesday that his group “wants peace, but the first step is to remove obstacles to peace and end the occupation of Afghanistan".
During the talks in the Russian capital, Afghan politicians raised the possibility of a ceasefire between the Taliban and government troops during Ramadan. The proposal was ultimately rejected by leaders of the insurgent group on Thursday when they reiterated their demand that foreign troops leave the country.
“How will a ceasefire be possible when the country is occupied?” spokesperson Mr Shahin told reporters on Thursday.
Direct negotiations between the Taliban and members of the Afghan government fell through in April this year over the size and composition of the government’s negotiating team. The Taliban has made a point of refusing face-to-face talks with President Ghani’s government, describing it as a puppet regime of the US.
