(ATN News): In a statement issued by the US State Department, it was said Khalilzad \u201cwill be traveling in the region to advance ongoing US efforts to promote the immediate start of intra-Afghan negotiations (IAN).\u201d \u201cThe Afghan people are ready for a sustainable reduction in violence and a political settlement that will end the war,\u201d the statement read. \u201cAfghan leaders must seize this historic opportunity for peace.\u00a0 All sides have taken important steps to remove obstacles for the start of IAN.\u00a0 Now is the time to start.\u201d Indications point towards the possibility of talks starting this week in Doha, where the Taliban has a political office.\u00a0 On Saturday, a delegation of Taliban members left Pakistan for Doha after holding talks with Pakistani officials. Later Saturday, the Taliban announced it had decided on its peace talks team members.\u00a0Their team will be led by Mawlawi Abdul Hakim \u2013 who is believed to be a hardline insurgent cleric and a close confidant of the Taliban\u2019s reclusive chief, Hibatullah Akhundzada.\u00a0 The Taliban\u2019s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told VOA the group has \u201cformed a strong and inclusive team for intra-Afghan negotiations. It mostly comprises members of the Rehbari Shoura [Taliban leadership council], and the Islamic Emirate\u2019s [Taliban] chief justice has been appointed as the team leader.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(ATN News): In a statement issued by the US State Department, it was said Khalilzad \u201cwill be traveling in the region to advance ongoing US efforts to promote the immediate start of intra-Afghan negotiations (IAN).\u201d \u201cThe Afghan people are ready for a sustainable reduction in violence and a political settlement that will end the war,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archived-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2943"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2944,"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2943\/revisions\/2944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}