Amid continued fighting in Afghanistan, senior leaders of the Afghan government and the Taliban, the main Afghan insurgent group, held discussions in Doha, Qatar in a bid to fast-track the already stalled peace process. 

In its opening remark, Abdullah Abdullah, the chief Afghan peace negotiator, said, “We cannot pay the price for this in blood and we cannot escape responsibility for it," and asked to take important steps to end the cycling of killings back home, which has only intensified in the wake of the departure of foreign troops.  

Media reports said Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's deputy leader, and the chief negotiator regretted the lack of progress in talks. Abdullah said we should still be “hopeful” of positive results. 

When asked about the first round of discussion held on Saturday, Abdullah replied, it wasn’t “bad”.

The increased fighting all across the country resulted in the displacement of over 300,000 people in the last two months.  

The Afghan government had said over 6000 people were killed alone in the last two months. Northern cities and towns remained worst affected, with the insurgents capturing over 100 of the 400 districts. Takhar, a northern province, saw at least 12,000 people internally displaced due to fighting, according to a UN estimate.  

(SAM)