Manama: Qatar has moved in to help defuse crippling tension after the status of the office opened by Taliban in the capital Doha waded into controversy.
“The office, which was opened on Tuesday is the Political Bureau of the Taliban Afghan in Doha, and not of the political bureau of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” an official source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Qatar News Agency (QNA). “The official name that was agreed upon with regard to the opening of this office is the Political Bureau of Taliban in Doha.”
The office was opened with grand fanfare by the Taliban who endeavoured to display, through their flag flying from the building and the name given to it — the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, a recognised international status, prompting the Afghani government to feel “betrayed” and President Hamid Karzai to lash out at the US.
A senior Afghan embassy official told Qatari daily Gulf Times that the controversy was over the name of the Taliban office in Doha, referred to as the “Political Office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” in the statement released to the media on Tuesday and on the plaque of their office in the West Bay area of the Qatari capital.
He said they had been assured that the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” name, referring to the pre-2001 Taliban government in Afghanistan, would not be used.
However, Sohail Shaheen, from the Taliban office in Doha, dismissed the objections to the name.
“They just want to deliberately create hurdles for us. We are interested in peace and our office (in Doha) is only for these efforts,” he told the daily. “But, it seems that they (the Karzai government) are not interested (in peace efforts). Inshallah, all such elements who are not interested in peace will be exposed,” he reportedly said.
Shaheen said that he expected a general meeting where each side gets to know the other would precede the direct talks with the Americans.
Tayyab Agha, the head of the Taliban bureau, is expected to lead their delegation to the talks.
Reports said that the pre-conditions by Washington for the talks included the Taliban making a statement supporting a peace process and opposing the use of Afghan soil to attack other countries.