US envoy shares peace deal draft with Ghani

The US chief negotiator on Monday shared a Taliban draft peace agreement with representatives of the Afghan government, officials said.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special representative for Afghanistan, met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah and showed them a draft peace deal agreed with the Taliban, according to the officials.

"President Ghani and CE Abdullah met Ambassador Khalilzad today. A copy of the draft framework (agreement) was shown to the President," tweeted Waheed Omer, Director General of the Office of Public and Strategic Affairs of the Presidential Palace.

"We will look into the document, and discussions with Khalilzad and team will continue," Omer said, without providing further details.

Khalilzad arrived in Kabul on Sunday to brief and hold consultations with Afghan leaders on the peace process, after concluding the ninth round of talks with Taliban negotiators in Qatar. Both sides have said they were on the verge of finalizing a peace deal. 

The US envoy wrote on his Twitter account on Sunday that the two sides "are at the threshold of an agreement that will reduce violence and open the door for Afghans to sit together to negotiate an honourable (and) sustainable peace and a unified, sovereign Afghanistan".

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Efe news that the ninth round of talks had officially ended but their technical team would continue to discuss some issues of the agreement with their US counterparts.

However, Mujahid refused to tell whether there will be another round of talks or the agreement had been finalized.IANS