Following their groundbreaking negotiations last month, the Taliban say they will hold another round of talks with the United States in Doha in September.
A leading British newspaper on Sunday quoted a senior member of the Taliban’s Quetta Shura as describing the first round of basic contacts as helpful.
Speaking to the Guardian, he said: “The next round will be more specific and focused on key issues … once the breakthrough is started, it will be stunning for all.”
According to the newspaper, the Afghan peace process has seen a boost after the August contact between the Taliban and US officials.
On July 23, after seven years of hiatus, four Taliban leaders held preliminary talks with Alice Wells, a senior State Department official, at a hotel in the Qatari capital.
Meanwhile, US website the Daily Beast claimed the Taliban negotiators had shown willingness to soften their stance on the pullout of all foreign troops before negotiations with the Afghan government.
Christopher Kolenda, an Afghan veteran who attended the meeting, told the Daily Beast: “I was struck by what I detected was a much higher level of seriousness about bringing the conflict to a close than I saw in 2011.”
According to the Guardian, a Taliban leader claimed Russian diplomats had shared with him intelligence that the US would leave Afghanistan in 2020.
