The government is yet to send a response on the Russian invitation to bring the Taliban and Afghanistan government on the same table to work towards a peace settlement. This is Russia's second attempt to invite all the stakeholders in Afghanistan to broker a peace deal between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
The Russian foreign ministry has scheduled the second meeting of the 'Moscow format' talks on Afghanistan on November 9. "The President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, A Ghani, has decided to send a delegation of the High Peace Council of this country to the meeting. For the first time, a delegation of the Political Office of the Taliban Movement in Doha will participate in an international meeting of this level," the ministry said in a statement.
The Wire reported that the invitations were also sent to countries like Afghanistan, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and the United States. Notably, this is the second attempt by the Putin administration to hold a regional forum with the participation from the Taliban.
A similar proposal was made in August where Russia had said to schedule the second round of the 11-party regional mechanism with Afghanistan, including the participation from the terrorist organization Taliban on September 4. However, the US had uprightly turned down the invitation and argued that the meeting was "unlikely to yield any progress" towards a peace settlement.
To further complicate the issue even the Afghanistan also refused to attend the meeting and demanded a direct talk with Taliban rather than engaging with the terror outfit in a multilateral platform with other countries. Eventually, the 'Moscow format' talks were postponed indefinitely by Russia just two days after its announcement on August 21.
Meanwhile, India is yet to take a call on the Russian invitation to hold multilateral peace talks. It is under dilemma that if New Delhi sits on the same table as that Taliban it would legitimise the Taliban rule in the tribal area of Afghanistan. India has maintained its stance of holding no talks with a terror outfit for a long time.
