A member of the Taliban’s negotiating team, Khairullah Khairkhwa, said on Saturday that the main point of contention in the ongoing intra-Afghan talks in Doha was that the Afghanistan Republic was refusing to deal with the current talks in the framework of the US-Taliban agreement.

US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said Thursday Washington had offered to meet with Iran in a bid to garner their assistance to end the war in Afghanistan. Speaking at a virtual discussion by the US Institute of Peace, Khalilzad said he would welcome talks with Afghanistan’s neighbor but said Tehran wanted to keep the US “entangled” in the conflict.

At least eight Taliban militants were killed and 11 more wounded in a clash with the Afghan forces in southern Kandahar provinces, police confirmed. The incident took place in Takhta Pul district of Kandahar province on Thursday night.

Militants have stepped up attacks on security forces in northwest Pakistan raising fears of a revival of their insurgency and a return of lawlessness as brighter prospects for peace in Afghanistan herald shifting Islamist alliances.

For the past decade and a half, American politicians, military leaders, and reporters have claimed that the Taliban is “tired,” “desperate,” “war weary” – despite the fact the Taliban has sparked “near-record violence” in Afghanistan, according to the United Nations.

Officials in Afghanistan said Thursday the latest clashes between security forces and Taliban insurgents had killed around 60 combatants on both sides since Wednesday, even as delegates of the two adversaries negotiate peace.

Intra-Afghan talks must address a number of thorny issues, but represent a major milestone to ending four decades of conflict.

Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) on Tuesday confirmed Special Forces had killed the mastermind of this month’s Nangarhar prison attack. The NDS said in a statement on Tuesday it had killed high ranking Daesh member, Abdullah Orakzai, the chief justice of ISIS-K/Daesh in Afghanistan.

“We are trying to negotiate their release with the Taliban,” says Abdullah Hasrat, a spokesman for Paktia’s governor after Taliban kidnapped six Afghan journalists.

The clashes came a day after the Taliban said they had killed 28 Afghan paramilitary policemen in Uruzgan in southern Afghanistan. Afghan security forces killed 65 Taliban militants during an intense battle in eastern Afghanistan, officials said, as fighting rages between the two sides amid ongoing peace talks.