Doha talks make progress at first meeting: Afghan government negotiators

Participants in the peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban that are currently underway in Qatar have made some progress during the Sunday contact group session

Participants in the peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban that are currently underway in Qatar have made some progress during the Sunday contact group session, Ahmad Nader Naderi, a member of the government's negotiating team, said.

"The first meeting between the contact groups of the two negotiation teams took place today. In this meeting code of conduct between two sides, schedules of upcoming meetings and relevant issues were discussed and progress was made," Naderi said on Twitter on Sunday.

Abdullah Abdullah, the chairman of Afghanistan's High Council for National Reconciliation, said at a press conference on Sunday that the peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban in the Qatari capital of Doha will be lengthy, but the two sides are aware of the Afghan people's desire to end violence as soon as possible.

The Doha peace talks started on Saturday after both sides successfully completed a long-awaited prisoner exchange arrangement. There is no timeline on the discussions, which are the first direct talks between the two warring sides.

US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo attended the opening ceremony of the talks on Saturday.

On February 29, the United States and the Taliban movement signed a peace deal in Doha, Qatar, stipulating a gradual withdrawal of US troops as well as the beginning of intra-Afghan negotiations and prisoner exchanges. The talks were delayed multiple times as the Afghan government and the Taliban disagreed over the prisoner exchange process.

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