Afghan Taliban delegation due to visit Pakistan

Islamabad: Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the head of the Afghan Talibans political office in Doha, is going to visit Pakistan along with a delegation to discuss the way forward in the Afghan peace process, according to a Foreign Office official.

"Yes, we have invited the Afghan Taliban delegation to visit Pakistan to discuss the way forward in the Afghan peace process," Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri, the Foreign Office spokesperson, told The Express Tribune on Sunday. He, however, neither confirmed the dates of the visit nor shed light on composition of the delegation.

This will be the second visit of Mullah Baradar to Pakistan in the last 10 months. He visited Islamabad in October 2019 when US President Donald Trump abruptly called off the peace talks with the Taliban, citing the militant group's continued attacks against the US-led foreign forces.

Pakistan at that time had arranged a meeting between the Taliban delegation led by Mullah Baradar and US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad. The intra-Afghan dialogue has been delayed for months because of differences between the Afghan government and the Taliban over the release of Taliban prisoners.