Hekmatyar believes Taliban are serious about peace

Monitoring Desk

KABUL: The Hizb-e-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who signed a peace deal with the Afghan government in 2016, says everyone in Afghanistan, including the Taliban, are tired of the war and that the group is now “serious” about a political settlement to the conflict in the country.

“I feel that not only our nation but also a majority of Taliban fighters are also tired of war and want peace,” Hekmatyar said in an interview with TOLOnews on Tuesday. “There is a possibility that a smaller number of them [Taliban] will still insist on war.”

His remarks are expressed amid US-Taliban talks in Qatar where the two sides strive to pave the way for a final resolution to the peace stalemate in the country.

Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for Taliban’s political office in Qatar, said the war will come to an end in the country and the Taliban fighters will join the ranks of the Afghan army if the two sides seal an agreement on the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan.

He said talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government is an internal issue and that Taliban is currently carrying out talks with the US about troop withdrawal.

Meanwhile, Hekmatyar said he has never left Afghanistan in the past 17 years and that during this period, Hizb-e-Islami fighters never asked any foreign nation to help them in carrying out operations against foreign forces, but they only acted against foreign forces by their own equipment.

Hekmatyar rejected any link with suicide attacks carried out in Afghanistan under his party and said members of Hizb-e-Islami had planned some of the attacks with their own equipment on hand.

He also confirmed the role of a female suicide attacker in one of the attacks.

“He came for the job on his own will and voluntarily. Their brothers asked him not to do it, but he said no he has decided to do it. So they came voluntarily and conducted the operation with their own facilities,” said Hekmatyar, referring to the suicide attacks linked to Hizb-e-Islami.

Hekmatyar, who run for president in the July 20 presidential elections, raised hope over the victory of his party members in last year’s parliamentary polls. (TOLOnews)