TEHRAN: An Afghan government delegation met with Taliban representatives in Tehran Wednesday, the Iranian foreign ministry said, as the Islamist militia pressed a lightning advance amid the pullout of US troops.
Opening the Tehran talks, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif welcomed the departure of its US foe from its eastern borders but warned: Today the people and political leaders of Afghanistan must make difficult decisions for the future of their country.
Leading negotiator Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai headed the Taliban delegation while former vice president Younus Qanooni represented the government, the Iranian ministry said.
Zarif hailed the “defeat” of US troops after two decades of war that had caused “extensive damage” but warned of the “unfavourable results of continuing the conflict in Afghanistan”.
Iran hosts several million Afghan refugees and migrant workers and is deeply concerned about the intensifying turmoil in the neighbouring country.
Zarif appealed to the warring parties in Afghanistan to return to the negotiating table, calling “commitment to political solutions the best choice for Afghanistan’s leaders and political movements”.
“We are proud to have stood alongside our noble Afghan brothers and sisters during the jihad against the foreign occupiers,” he added, in a video excerpt of his speech released by the ministry.
On Tuesday, Afghan authorities vowed to retake all the districts lost to the Taliban as the pullout of US forces neared completion.
Hundreds of commandos were deployed to counter the insurgents’ blistering offensive in the north, a day after more than 1,000 government troops fled into neighbouring Tajikistan.
But on Wednesday, the Taliban attacked the Badghis provincial capital Qalat-i-Naw, the first regional seat they have entered since the launch of their latest offensive, local officials said.
The insurgents already control all of the surrounding countryside in the western province.
The US Central Command meanwhile announced that the American withdrawal from the country, ordered in April by President Joe Biden, was now more than 90 percent complete, underscoring that Afghan forces are increasingly on their own in the battle with the Taliban.
TALIBAN LAUNCH ASSAULT ON AFGHANISTAN’S QALA-I-NAW AMID US WITHDRAWAL: The Taliban launched a major assault on a provincial capital in Afghanistan on Wednesday, the first since the US military began its final drawdown of troops from the country.
Fierce fighting erupted in the western city of Qala-i-Naw, the capital of Badghis, with the Taliban seizing police headquarters and offices of the country’s spy agency.
Afghanistan’s Defence Minister Bismillah Mohammadi said government forces were in a “very sensitive military situation”, adding that “the war is raging” with the Taliban.
The onslaught came just hours after Washington announced US forces on the ground had completed more than 90% of their withdrawal from Afghanistan, and as the Kabul government held talks with Taliban representatives in neighbouring Iran.
The Taliban have waged a dizzying campaign across Afghanistan since US and NATO forces announced the final withdrawal from the country in early May, seizing dozens of rural districts and stirring fears that the government is in crisis.
“The enemy has entered the city, all the districts have fallen,” Badghis governor Hessamuddin Shams told reporters in a text message.
Badghis provincial council chief Abdul Aziz Bek confirmed the assault, saying some security officials had surrendered to the Taliban.
“The provincial council officials have fled to an army camp in the city. Fighting continues in the city,” added Badghis provincial council member Zia Gul Habibi.
She said the Taliban had entered the city’s police headquarters and the local office of the country’s spy agency, the National Directorate of Security.
In a separate video message sent to reporters, Shams attempted to calm the residents of the city, even as he appeared armed with a rifle with gunfire rattling in the distance.
“My message is please ke
