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China offers to host talks between Afghan government and Taliban

The SCO states must help various forces of the Afghan government and the opposition to find common ground to regulate the differences in order to reach national accord as soon as possible, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also noted

BEIJING, July 14. /TASS/. China is ready to organize and host another round of talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban movement (outlawed in Russia), Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Wednesday during the ministerial meeting of the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group in Dushanbe.

"China is also ready to organize the inter-Afghan talks in China in due course," he said, as quoted on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s website. He added that the SCO states must help various forces of the Afghan government and the opposition to show flexibility and find common ground to regulate the differences in order to reach national accord as soon as possible.

"China will continue to build bridges between all interested parties in the future with full respect for the state sovereignty of Afghanistan, providing mediation services to achieve reconciliation, to aid and share its experience to stimulate constructive processes on political regulation of the Afghan issue," Wang Yi concluded.

Clashes between the Afghan government forces and the Taliban intensified after US President Joe Biden’s decision to end the US operation in Afghanistan. As of July 13, the US has withdrawn over 95% of its forces. Afghan officials have repeatedly said that the Taliban movement is scaling up its offensive operations. At the same time, the Taliban movement stated that it had managed to establish control over 85% of the republic’s territory, including the areas bordering five countries - Iran, China, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

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