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 the continuing intra-Afghan negotiations in Doha on the achievement of a just and durable political settlement,” Turkey’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
“The conference will focus on helping the negotiating parties reach a set of shared, foundational principles that reflect an agreed vision for a future Afghanistan, a roadmap to a future political settlement and an end to the conflict,” it said.
However, Mohammad Naeem, spokesman for the Taliban office in Qatar, said in a tweet later on Tuesday: “Until all foreign forces completely withdraw from our homeland, (we) will not participate in any conference that shall make decisions about Afghanistan.”
