6 yıl önce

Innocents caught up in Afghanistan's violence

Kabul has offered to recognise the Taliban, but the Taliban insists that it negotiates with the US. The US has refused and the deadlock remains. In the mean time, it is the civilians who suffer.

AP

Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, center, speaks during the 2nd Kabul Process conference at the Presidential Palace in Kabul on February 28, 2018, where he calle on the Taliban to take part in peace talks to "save the country."

The UN envoy for Afghanistan has urged the Taliban to respond to the government's offer of negotiations and start direct talks "to put an end to the suffering of the Afghan people."

Tadamichi Yamamoto told the Security Council Thursday the Taliban's argument that it won't talk to the government because the conflict is not between Afghan parties "misrepresents the reality."

He said tens of thousands of Afghans are killed and injured every year in confrontations between the Taliban and government forces.

Yamamoto stressed that President Ashraf Ghani "offered peace to the Taliban without preconditions, and laid out a path for negotiations with ... concrete proposals."

He said Ghani's proposal has been widely endorsed and "it is now incumbent upon the Taliban to come forward with an offer of their own."

The Taliban has said it wants to negotiate with the US. The US, however, has said that the Taliban has to negotiate with the government of Afghanistan.

Ghani's offer for a peace deal without preconditions was made at the end of last month.

But with the current standoff there appears to be little prospect of a peace deal and it is the civilians who suffer.

TRT World's Nick Davis Jones reports.