The Taliban said it will hold further talks with the United States on ending the 17-year war in Afghanistan after meeting a US delegation on Friday.
The US side was led by the recently appointed Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-born former US ambassador to Kabul, while the Taliban was represented by top officials of its political office in the Qatari capital, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The National.
“The representatives of the Islamic Emirate [Afghanistan] identified the presence of foreign forces as the greatest obstacle obstructing true peace and solving problems, adding that Afghanistan is an Islamic country and has its own Islamic values and culture," he said.
"Keeping that in mind, efforts must be made towards a true and intra-Afghan solution. At the end both sides agreed to continue holding meetings in the future.”
The US delegation agreed to discuss a US withdrawal from Afghanistan in further meetings, a Taliban commander told The National.
There was no confirmation of the talks from the US, although a top Afghan government official told The National it was an "initial meeting to discuss peace" while refusing to disclose details.
Mr Khalilzad did not mention the meeting in a statement released through the US embassy in Kabul, where he returned on Saturday after travelling to Pakistan, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
“The United States shares the aspirations of all Afghans for a peaceful Afghanistan where all Afghans see themselves included," he said. "All citizens of Afghanistan must be a part of this reconciliation process.”
Mr Khalilzad did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The National. The US State Department was unavailable for comment before time of going to press.
The Taliban spokesman said its six-member negotiating team was made up of Al Haj Sher Muhammad Abbas Stanikzai, the head of its political office; his deputy Mawlawi Abdul Salam Hanafi; and office members Sheikh Shahabuddin Delawar, Qari Deen Muhammad Hanif, Al Haj Muhammad Zahid Ahmadzai and Muhammad Sohail Shaheen.
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The Taliban political office in Doha was opened in 2013 at the US request to initiate peace talks. The Taliban say they held direct talks with US officials for the first time in July, including with Alice Wells, the senior official for the State Department's Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs.
The Taliban insist that the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan is the biggest hurdle to achieving peace in the country. There are 14,000 US troops in Afghanistan to provide training and support the Afghan forces after US President Donald Trump increased their numbers last year under a new strategy to counter the insurgents.
Despite taking tentative steps towards a peace process, the Taliban continue to attack Afghan security forces, with at least 17 soldiers reported killed and 11 other abducted from an army camp in the western Farah province on Sunday.
Last Monday, a day after Mr Khalilzad arrived in Kabul for his first visit since being appointed, the insurgents repeated their threat to disrupt parliamentary elections next week, which are already three years overdue, and urged Afghans not to take part
"Khalilzad's meetings with the Taliban are an indication that efforts toward launching a peace process are slowly but finally headed in the right direction. But these efforts still remain in the 'talks about talks' phase. Until the Taliban gets an offer it can't refuse, it has little incentive to stop fighting a war it believes it's winning," Michael Kugelman, a senior associate for South and South-East Asia at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, told The National.
“The good news is that there’s never been a better opportunity. The Taliban’s brief truce earlier this year shows it’s willing to support peace. And the US willingness, with approval from Kabul, to speak directly with the Taliban means that a key Taliban precondition has been met," Mr Kugelman said.
"The question is, what else can the US and Afghanistan offer to the Taliban that is generous enough to the insurgents without being prohibitively risky to Washington and Kabul?"
Last week, Pakistan and the United States encouraged Saudi Arabia to join efforts to resolve the 17-year Afghan conflict through a negotiated peace and reconciliation process.
Violence in the country has been escalating in the days before the October 20 parliamentary election. Twenty-two people were killed and 36 injured in an attack on an election rally in north-eastern province of Takhar on Saturday. There was no claim of responsibility for the bombing.
The US ambassador to Afghanistan John Bass condemned the violence, and called on the Taliban to do the same. "If the group [Taliban] is serious about the peace process it will do the same and punish those responsible," he said in a tweet.
The Taliban, Afghanistan's biggest militant group, were toppled from power by US-led invasion in 2001 and have so far refused to hold peace talks with Afghan government.
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
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The five pillars of Islam
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5. Zakat
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Europe’s rearming plan
- Suspend strict budget rules to allow member countries to step up defence spending
- Create new "instrument" providing €150 billion of loans to member countries for defence investment
- Use the existing EU budget to direct more funds towards defence-related investment
- Engage the bloc's European Investment Bank to drop limits on lending to defence firms
- Create a savings and investments union to help companies access capital
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Business Insights
- Canada and Mexico are significant energy suppliers to the US, providing the majority of oil and natural gas imports
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Company%20Profile
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Other ways to buy used products in the UAE
UAE insurance firm Al Wathba National Insurance Company (AWNIC) last year launched an e-commerce website with a facility enabling users to buy car wrecks.
Bidders and potential buyers register on the online salvage car auction portal to view vehicles, review condition reports, or arrange physical surveys, and then start bidding for motors they plan to restore or harvest for parts.
Physical salvage car auctions are a common method for insurers around the world to move on heavily damaged vehicles, but AWNIC is one of the few UAE insurers to offer such services online.
For cars and less sizeable items such as bicycles and furniture, Dubizzle is arguably the best-known marketplace for pre-loved.
Founded in 2005, in recent years it has been joined by a plethora of Facebook community pages for shifting used goods, including Abu Dhabi Marketplace, Flea Market UAE and Arabian Ranches Souq Market while sites such as The Luxury Closet and Riot deal largely in second-hand fashion.
At the high-end of the pre-used spectrum, resellers such as Timepiece360.ae, WatchBox Middle East and Watches Market Dubai deal in authenticated second-hand luxury timepieces from brands such as Rolex, Hublot and Tag Heuer, with a warranty.
Fixtures
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Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
- Join parent networks
- Look beyond school fees
- Keep an open mind
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
