Pakistan’s special envoy in Doha for ‘troika’ meetings on Afghanistan today

ISLAMABAD: Ambassador Muhammad Sadiq, Pakistan’s special envoy for Afghan peace, is visiting Doha to participate in the Regional Conference on Afghanistan and a two-day meeting of the Troika Plus mechanism, the Pakistani foreign office said.
The Troika is a platform to discuss Afghanistan led by the United States, China, Russia. Its meetings come three weeks before the August 31 date that Washington set for the official withdrawal of its military forces in Afghanistan.
“This meeting of Troika Plus in Doha is taking place at an important time when the security situation in Afghanistan is continuously deteriorating particularly as the withdrawal of US and NATO troops from the country continues,” the foreign office said. “Pakistan hopes that the meetings in Doha would help facilitate resumption of Intra-Afghan Negotiations with a view to achieve a political solution for a peaceful, stable and prosperous Afghanistan, at peace with itself and with its neighbors.”
Afghan Taliban insurgents have taken dozens of districts and border crossings in recent months and on Tuesday, Pul-e-Khumri, capital of the northern province of Baghlan, fell to insurgents, becoming the seventh regional capital to come under their control in about a week.
Taliban forces now control 65 percent of Afghanistan, threaten to take 11 provincial capitals and seek to deprive Kabul of its traditional support from national forces in the north, a senior European Union official said on Tuesday.
Peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban negotiators started last year in the Qatari capital of Doha, but have not made any substantive progress.