Afghan opposition leader Massoud calls for peace talks with the Taliban

The leader of the Afghan opposition group resisting Taliban forces in the Panjshir Valley, north of Kabul, said on Sunday that he welcomed proposals from religious scholars for a negotiated settlement to end the fighting.

Ahmad Massoud, head of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRFA), made the announcement on the group’s Facebook page. Earlier, Taliban forces said they had made their way to the provincial capital of Panjshir after securing the surrounding districts.

The Islamist Taliban seized control of the rest of Afghanistan three weeks ago and seized power in Kabul on August 15 after the Western-backed government collapsed and President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.

“The NRF in principle agrees to resolve the current problems and immediately end the fighting and continue the negotiations,” Massoud said in the Facebook post.

“To achieve a lasting peace, the NRF is ready to stop fighting on the condition that the Taliban also stop their attacks and military movements in Panjshir and Andarab,” he said, referring to a district in neighboring Baghlan province.

Then a big meeting of all sides could be held with the Ulema council of religious scholars, he said.

Earlier, Afghan media reported that religious scholars had asked the Taliban to accept a negotiated settlement to end the fighting in Panjshir.

There was no immediate response from the Taliban.

Massoud, who leads a force made up of remnants of the regular Afghan army and special forces units, as well as local militiamen, called for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban before fighting broke out a week ago.

Several attempts at talks were made, but ultimately failed, with each side blaming the other for their failure.

Taliban spokesman Bilal Karimi said early Sunday that his forces had made their way to the provincial capital, Bazarak, and seized large amounts of weapons and ammunition.

Rugged valley

Panjshir, a steep valley in the mountains north of Kabul that is still littered with the remains of Soviet tanks destroyed during the long war in the 1980s to drive out the Soviet presence, has proven very difficult to overcome in the past. .

Under Massoud’s late father, Ahmad Shah Massoud, the region long resisted the control of both the invading Soviet army and the Taliban government that previously ruled from 1996 to 2001.

But that effort was aided by supply routes leading north to the border, which were closed by the landslide victory of the Taliban last month.

Panjshir’s fight has been the most prominent example of resistance to the Taliban. But individual protests for women’s rights or in defense of the green, red and black tricolor of Afghanistan have also taken place in different small towns.

(REUTERS)