KABUL:
China has invited a
Taliban delegation to attend an "intra-Afghan" conference in Beijing, a militant spokesman said on Wednesday, after a prospective deal between the United States and the insurgents collapsed last month.Suhail Shaheen, a
Taliban political spokesman, said on Twitter that Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the group´s co-founder, had met with Chinese diplomats in Doha, where the militants have a political office. "Both sides discussed the upcoming
intra-Afghan conference in Beijing and issues related to the solution of Afghan problem," Shaheen wrote.He later told AFP the conference would take place on October 29-30.It would be separate from
talks between the US and the Taliban, which spent the past year negotiating a deal that would have seen the Pentagon pull thousands of troops from Afghanistan in return for various security guarantees. President Donald Trump scrapped those
talks last month amid continued
Taliban violence in Afghanistan, including a bombing that killed an American soldier. The deal would have paved the way for separate
talks between the
Taliban and the Afghan government to search for an end to the conflict.The
Taliban have steadfastly refused to talk to the Afghan government, and Shaheen said any attendance by Afghan officials in Beijing would be on the understanding they were representing only themselves.
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