TIL Desk/World/London-The Taliban and representatives of the Afghan Government have restarted secret talks in the Gulf state of Qatar. Sources told that among those present at the meetings held in September and October was Mullah Abdul Manan Akhund, the brother of Mullah Omar, the former Taliban chief who led the movement from its earliest days until his death in 2013.
The two rounds of talks are the first known negotiations to have taken place since a Pakistan-brokered process entirely broke down following the death of Omar’s successor Mullah Akhtar Mansoor in a US drone strike. According to a Taliban source, no Pakistani official took part in either the October or September meetings but a senior US diplomat was present in the Qatar meetings.
The presence of the US officials helped make the meeting possible given the Taliban’s long standing reluctance to meet directly with the Afghan Government, which it publicly lambasts as a “puppet regime”. The US embassy in Afghanistan declined to comment on the claim.
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