Day: April 14, 2021

Sukoon Radio has begun broadcasts in southern Helmand province on Thursday amid closure of many media outlets due to security and economic issues . . .You need to subscribe to view the full article.

 The Taliban have linked participation in any conference on Afghanistan’s future to the pullout of all international forces from the country. Mohammad Naeem, spokesman for Taliban’s political office in Doha, said this in a tweet hours after President Biden announced on Tuesday withdrawing all US troops from Afghanistan by September. Naeem wrote: “Until all foreign forces withdraw from our homeland, we will not participate in any conference that shall make decisions about Afghanistan.” Under last year’s peace pact with the Taliban, the Trump administration had pledged pulling out all forces…

Turkey’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday the Afghan government and the Taliban would attend the 10 day summit. But the Taliban later said it will not attend any summits on Afghanistan’s future until all foreign forces leave the country. The meeting would include the United Nations and Qatar as part of a United States-backed push to advance stalled Doha talks ahead of a May 1 deadline for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan. “The overriding objective of the Istanbul Conference on the Afghanistan Peace Process is to accelerate and complement…

 All US troops will leave Afghanistan by Sept 11 and the withdrawal will start before May 1, a deadline set in the US-Taliban agreement signed last year. We will begin an orderly drawdown of the remaining forces before May 1 and plan to have all US troops out of the country before the 20th anniversary of 9/11,” the official said. The US still has some 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. At a hurriedly called virtual conference, the official also said that US President Joe Biden would formally announce the pullout schedule…