Afghan Peace Talks: Top Afghanistan Minister To Visit India To Discuss Peace Dialogue

Afghan Peace Talks: Afghan Foreign Minister Mohammad Haneef Atmar is expected to visit India on Monday amid a flurry of ongoing international efforts to unblock the Kabul-Taliban peace process in Doha.

Atmar is expected to brief Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on the results of last week’s Moscow conference on Afghanistan.

The Moscow-sponsored meeting brought together the so-called extended troika — Russia, China, the United States and Pakistan — as well as Afghan political forces and the Taliban.

The talks were meant to revitalize the Doha peace talks and set the scene for a US-sponsored conference in Turkey in April, in which India is one of the invitees along with Russia, China, India, Iran and Pakistan.

Along with the peace process, the Afghan and Indian diplomats would discuss bilateral cooperation, which entered a new stage in February, when the two neighbors signed a memorandum of understanding on India’s new major hydroelectric project in the Islamic republic.