Former Afghan Foreign Minister urged to resume dialogue between internal stakeholders

Former Afghan Foreign Minister Mohammed Hanif Atmar has called for a resumption of talks between various Afghan stakeholders to resolve the decades-long conflict. He stated this in an open letter to the participants of the Fourth Ministerial Conference of Afghanistan's Neighboring Countries in Samarkand, Pajhwok Afghan News reported.

As Atmar said, following the talks in Doha the Taliban “undertook the obligation to negotiate” with other forces inside the country and must comply with it. As a platform for dialogue, he proposed the High Council for National Reconciliation, which the Taliban dismantled in May 2022.

According to the former minister, "a humanitarian catastrophe in the country can lead to mass starvation, and the situation will only aggravate in the coming months." He said that one of the reasons for the plight was “an unreasonable ban on employing Afghan women”.