President Ashraf Ghani held a meeting at the Presidential Palace with key Afghan political leaders on Wednesday to discuss the peace process, particularly focusing on the latest peace plan proposed by the US. Sources who attended the meeting said on Thursday there was no broad agreement on a way forward. According to the sources, consultation between the Afghan political leaders […]

Washington’s Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s (SIGAR) John F Sopko this week warned that the May 1 troop withdrawal deadline does not only apply to foreign military forces, numbering around 10,000 in total, but also to as many as 18,000 foreign contractors and trainers currently in Afghanistan.

Washington’s new plan for a transitional government that includes the Taliban is the best chance to accelerate stalled peace talks between the group and the Afghan government, former president Hamid Karzai said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday. Karzai said after decades of war, Afghans themselves “are in a hurry for peace”.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Friday that Turkey plans to hold an Afghan peace conference in Istanbul in April. This comes after the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said in a letter to President Ashraf Ghani, that a meeting facilitated by the UN will be hosted in Turkey to discuss the Afghan peace process.