Afghanistan鈥檚 Taliban meets Chinese government in Beijing

Taliban representatives are pictured during the second day of the Intra-Afghan Peace Conference talks in Doha, Qatar, on July 8. (AFP)
  • President Trump called off peace talks with Taliban early this month
  • Talks paved the way to a broader peace deal with the Afghan government and ending an 18-year war

KABUL: A Taliban delegation met China鈥檚 special representative for Afghanistan in Beijing to discuss the group鈥檚 peace talks with the United States, a spokesman for the Islamist insurgency said.
The meeting, on Sunday, comes after US President Donald Trump鈥檚 11th-hour cancelation earlier this month of negotiations with the Taliban, which many had hoped would pave the way to a broader peace deal with the Afghan government and ending an 18-year war.
The Taliban鈥檚 nine-member delegation traveled to Beijing and met Deng Xijun, China鈥檚 special representative for Afghanistan, said Suhail Shaheen, the Afghan group鈥檚 spokesman in Qatar, on his official Twitter account on Sunday.
Qatar was where the Taliban and the United States held peace talks over the past year.
鈥淭he Chinese special representative said the US-Taliban deal is a good framework for the peaceful solution of the Afghan issue and they support it,鈥� Shaheen wrote.
Mullah Baradar, the Taliban delegation鈥檚 leader, said they had held a dialogue and reached a 鈥渃omprehensive deal,鈥� Shaheen tweeted.
鈥淣ow, if the US president cannot stay committed to his words and breaks his promise, then he is responsible for any kind of distraction and bloodshed in Afghanistan,鈥� Baradar said, according to Shaheen.
Speaking in Beijing on Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang confirmed that Baradar and several of his assistants came to China for exchanges in recent days.
鈥淐hina鈥檚 relevant foreign ministry official exchanged opinions with Baradar regarding the situation in Afghanistan and promoting Afghanistan鈥檚 peace and reconciliation process,鈥� Geng said.
Afghanistan will this coming week hold its fourth presidential elections since US-led forces toppled the Taliban from power in 2001.
Those elections have gained importance since the collapse of the peace talks, as the negotiations could have led to the creation of an interim government, now a more distant prospect.
In June, before the peace talks fell apart, another Taliban team went to China to meet with the government.
At the time, a foreign ministry spokesman said China supported Afghans resolving their problems themselves through talks, and the visit was an important part of China promoting such peace talks.
China鈥檚 far western region of Xinjiang shares a short border with Afghanistan.
China has long worried about links between militant groups and what it says are Islamist extremists operating in Xinjiang, home to the mostly Muslim Uighur people, who speak a Turkic language.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday called on all countries to resist China鈥檚 demands to repatriate ethnic Uighurs, saying Beijing鈥檚 campaign in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang was an 鈥渁ttempt to erase its own citizens.鈥�
Geng said Pompeo had slandered China, and that its policies in Xinjiang were fundamentally no different than what other countries had done to guard against extremism and terrorism.
UN experts and activists say at least 1 million Uighurs, and members of other largely Muslim minority groups, have been detained in camps in the remote Xinjiang region.
China, a close ally of Pakistan, has been deepening its economic and political ties with Kabul and is also using its influence to try to bring the two uneasy neighbors closer.