Taliban spokesman says peace talks will be ‘accelerated in the coming days’

The Taliban on Monday said it is accelerating peace talks with the Afghan government, with written peace plans possibly coming as soon as next month.

“The peace talks and process will be accelerated in the coming days … and they are expected to enter an important stage, naturally it will be about peace plans,” Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesperson, told Reuters.

“Possibly it will take a month to reach that stage when both sides will share their written peace plan,” Mujahid added. “Although we [Taliban] have the upper hand on the battlefield, we are very serious about talks and dialogue.”

Najia Anwari, a spokesperson for Afghanistan’s Ministry for Peace Affairs, said it was “difficult to anticipate that the Taliban will provide us with their written document of a peace plan in a month, but let’s be positive.”

“We hope they present [it] so as to understand what they want,” Anwari said.

The latest signals from the Taliban come as it continues to seize control of territories in light of U.S. and NATO forces withdrawing from Afghanistan. More than a thousand members of Afghanistan’s security forces have fled across the border to neighboring Tajikistan. 

In June, the Taliban said it was committed to peace talks, with its co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar saying the organization was still pursuing a “genuine Islamic system.”

“A genuine Islamic system is the best means for solution of all issues of the Afghans,” Baradar said. “Our very participation in the negotiations and its support on our part indicates openly that we believe in resolving issues through [mutual] understanding.”