Afghan VP blasts foreign interference in peace talks

Afghan Vice-President Karim Khalili underlined that only Afghan groups should be present in the peace talks being held in the country, and cautioned that a peace negotiation gifted by the foreign countries will produce no result and prove useless. "We ask the foreign countries to allow Afghans to decide about their own fate," Khalili said, addressing people after Friday prayers in a Kabul mosque. "Peace is a need but achievements of the Afghan people should not be ignored to attain this goal," he added. Khalili stressed the importance of unity and empathy among the Afghan people, and said, "Despite the fact that the enemies of Afghanistan are trying to create a rift among Afghans, the Afghan people will never give them this opportunity." Many regional and world officials have on many occasions warned that foreign powers' interference in Afghanistan is undermining unity and security in the war-torn country. Earlier this month, a senior Iranian legislator blamed the US officials for the recent increase in terrorist attacks in Afghanistan which have killed a large number of innocent civilians in the country, and said there are many documents proving that Americans have had meetings with the same terrorists responsible for these attacks. "It is now 10 years that the Afghan soil was occupied by the US military forces and documents indicate that the US officials hold official meetings with the terrorist groups," Head of the parliament's Human Rights Commission Zohreh Elahian told FNA. Earlier news by the western media in July said that the US officials have met with a senior aide to the fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar at least three times in recent months. The western media also reported that meetings have been facilitated by Germany and Qatar, but US officials have been present each time, meeting with Tayeb Agha, who is a personal assistant to Omar. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the US State Department have been involved in the meetings, the western reports quoted an unnamed American official as saying at the time. The meetings were first reported by The Washington Post and the German magazine Der Spiegel in July. A senior Afghan official and Western officials working in the region confirmed the reports on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to talk to the media about the issue. While the US insisted that the conversations with the Taliban were at a "very, very preliminary" stage, media reports said that the first face-to-face meeting between Washington and Taliban officials occurred in Germany in November last year, mediated by German and Qatari officials. A second round occurred in Doha in February, and a third meeting in Germany was held in May. 10 years after the western invasion of the country, the insurgency is at its bloodiest since 2001, despite the presence of foreign troops in the war-torn country.