Afghanistan's Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai has said that China has been asked to persuade Pakistan to make sincere efforts towards peace talks as he asserted "face-to-face" talks with the Taliban will begin soon, a claim that was rejected by the Taliban as false.
While speaking at a seminar organised by the Center for Strategic Studies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan and the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations in Kabul, Karzai although did not specify a date for the talks but said that "progress" had been made in recent reconciliatory talks with the "armed opponents," reported The Express Tribune.
He added that the Afghanistan regime was engaged in the process of creating a negotiation team and a venue is being decided for the talks.