Kabul, March 22: A senior delegation representing one of the main Afghan insurgent movements is in Kabul with a plan for peace talks with the Afghan government, a senior official in President Hamid Karzai’s government said on Monday.
The Hezb-i-Islami group, which leads an insurgency separate from the Taliban mainly in the east, had sent a delegation headed by former prime minister Qutbuddin Helal, deputy to the group’s leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the official said.
He asked not to be named while discussing the talks, which had not officially been made public.
Hezb-i-Islami is one of the three groups that NATO forces recognise as the main insurgent factions, led by Hekmatyar, a veteran anti-Soviet guerrilla commander, civil war faction leader and former prime minister.
Hekmatyar’s Islamist fighters have long fought NATO and Afghan government forces in the east and in pockets in the north. The group has in the past claimed to share some aims with the Taliban, but has remained separate, while the Taliban have made some inroads in recent months into areas it controls.
Earlier this month, the government said a number of Hezb-i-Islami fighters in a northern district had agreed to back the authorities after clashing with Taliban guerrillas over control of villages there.
Karzai’s government has reached out to Hezb-i-Islami indirectly in the past and Karzai included a former member in his latest cabinet reshuffle, but the delegation this week appears to be one of the most senior to participate in direct talks.
——Agencies