A FORMER high-level Taleban official has said that he met last month in Saudi Arabia with representatives of the Taleban, the Afghan government and a powerful Afghan warlord.
But Abdul Salam Zaeef – the Taleban's former ambassador to Pakistan and a noted moderate – said the meeting could not be construed as a peace negotiation.
Mr Zaeef said he was invited by Saudi King Abdullah to share the Iftar meal with him one nig
ht. The meal is held each night during the holy month of Ramadan to break the daily fast.
"This is not new, it's a kind of a guest celebration," Mr Zaeef said. "The list included me, (former Taleban foreign minister Wakil Ahmad] Mutawakil, some from the Taleban, some from (warlord Gulbuddin] Hekmatyar, some from the government. We didn't discuss any issue of Afghanistan."
Mr Zaeef, who spent almost four years in the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, said there were no "official" representatives from the Taleban or Hekmatyar, meaning there was no-one authorised to carry out peace talks.
The government of Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's president, has long encouraged militants to lay down arms, but the Taleban leadership has largely rebuffed repeated overtures.
Saudi Arabia is a leader in the Sunni Muslim world and was one of a handful of countries that recognised the Taleban as rulers of Afghanistan in the 1990s.
