In an article published on Tuesday, British newspaper ‘The Guardian’ reported that two meetings had taken place in September and October in the Gulf state of Qatar.
It said the meetings were attended by Mullah Abdul Manan Akhund, brother of the late Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, and Afghan spy chief Mohammed Masoom Stanikzai.
‘No official from the Islamic Emirate has met Masoom Stanakzai or other Kabul administration officials,’ Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement issued late Tuesday.
He called on ‘all media to refrain from publishing baseless reports such as this.’ The last round of talks came to a halt in mid-2015 after news broke of the death of long-time Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
In March, the Taliban rejected a peace initiative put forward by the Afghan, Pakistani, Chinese and US governments.
The Afghan government has yet to comment on the alleged talks.
However, a UN official who wanted to remain unnamed said that there may be reasons for the Taliban to pursue peace talks again.
‘They had an all-out fighting season, and they were still not able to capture a large provincial centre as they planned to,’ he said. ‘Peace talks would leave them another option if the military calculations fail to succeed.’ Afghan political analyst Nasrullah Stanikzai said that peace talks could make sense as the Taliban's ‘financial sources are decreasing and pressure on [allied] Pakistan to fight against the terrorists in safe havens is impacting the Taliban,’ Stankazai said.
