Islamabad: Pakistan Wednesday said it will take part in the four-party dialogue on the Afghan peace process to be held in Moscow next month, which will try to revive the stalled negotiations.
Russia, US, China and Pakistan are part of the group. Addressing a weekly press briefing here, Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Faisal said, “Pakistan will attend the talks and it will be represented by the additional secretary for Afghanistan and the West Asia.”
Islamabad has also participated in the previous round of the talks held in Beijing in July. That was the third meeting of the trilateral forum comprising China, Russia and US and the first in which Pakistan was involved.
“Pakistan has been part of all efforts made for peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan and it would continue to play its role towards it,” Faisal said.
“The next round of talks is being held in Moscow at an opportune moment as it would provide an important opportunity to review the currently stalled peace process,” he said.
Faisal said Pakistan will continue its “wholehearted support as its part of shared responsibility for making the international peace efforts successful in Afghanistan.”
Earlier this month, a high-level Afghan Taliban delegation visited Pakistan. The visit had coincided with US reconciliation envoy Zalmay Khalilzad’s trip to Islamabad.
In September, US President Donald Trump cancelled a secret meeting with the Taliban and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at Camp David near Washington after the Taliban claimed responsibility of an attack in Kabul in which an American soldier were among the dead.
The US has been conducting peace talks with the Taliban and the two sides were hopeful of a deal that included America cutting down on troops in Afghanistan and guarantees by Taliban of not allowing the Afghan soil to be ever used again for terror activities.
The US-Taliban talks had collapsed after nine rounds of talks between the US and Taliban representatives, held in Doha, the capital of the Gulf state of Qatar.