Abdullah Abdullah, head of the High Council for National Reconciliation, and Mohammad Haneef Atmar, acting minister of foreign affairs, returned to the country from Doha on Sunday evening, Abdullah’s office said.
Abdullah attended the opening ceremony of the intra-Afghan negotiations, calling it an “historic day” for the country.
The contact groups from the Afghan government and Taliban negotiating teams held their first meeting on Sunday evening and discussed the agenda, guidelines, scheduling and other issues related to the direct peace negotiations.
The negotiating teams representing the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Taliban held a meeting behind closed doors on Saturday after the opening ceremony of the intra-Afghan negotiations where they created the contact groups.
On Sunday, the chief negotiator of Afghanistan Masoom Stanekzai at a joint press conference said: “There was a positive spirit. There wasn’t any effort to drive the negotiations towards controversial discussions.”
Also, Abdullah said that the “violence should be reduced significantly with the start of the negotiations so that we reach a humanitarian ceasefire.”
The Afghan team held a meeting with Abdullah and acting Minister Atmar on Sunday about integrating their plans for the peace negotiations.
