Afghan Taliban delegates discuss US peace talks with Chinese govt officials in Beijing – spokesman

A Taliban delegation met China’s special representative for Afghanistan in Beijing to discuss the group’s peace talks with the US, Reuters said, citing a spokesman for the Islamist insurgency as saying.

The meeting on Sunday comes after US President Donald Trump’s cancellation earlier this month of negotiations with the Taliban. Many had hoped the agreement would pave the way to a broader peace deal with the Afghan government and ending an 18-year war.

The Taliban’s nine-member delegation traveled to Beijing and met Deng Xijun, China’ special representative for Afghanistan, Suhail Shaheen, the Afghan group’s spokesman in Qatar, said on his official Twitter account on Sunday. The Taliban and the US held peace talks over the past year in Qatar. “The Chinese special representative said the US-Taliban deal is a good framework for the peaceful solution of the Afghan issue and they support it,” according to Shaheen.

He also quoted Mullah Baradar, the Taliban delegation’s leader, as saying that “now, if the US president cannot stay committed to his words and breaks his promise, then he is responsible for any kind of distraction and bloodshed in Afghanistan.”