Larijani: U.S. dishonest in Afghan peace talks

Speaking during a joint press conference with his Afghan counterpart Fazl Hadi Muslimyar in Tehran on Saturday evening, Larijani also said, “The security of Afghanistan is important to the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
The senior lawmaker pointed out that some countries are after creating insecurity in Afghanistan with terrorist measures. “Their final objective is to undermine economic investments in this country.”
“The Americans have held countless rounds of negotiations with the Taliban while this is not the right path and all measures must be undertaken with the central role of the Afghan government,” he said, criticizing the U.S.-Taliban talks for trying to push the Afghan government aside.
He then cautioned that the current situation in Afghanistan is sensitive, highlighting that the White House is “acting insincerely” in its relations with Afghanistan.
“While they claim to be after negotiations, they are following a different path,” the top lawmaker stressed.
Larijani reiterated Iran’s support for Afghanistan’s territorial integrity, adding that the Tehran-Kabul ties are historical and deep.
“Your presence in Tehran will certainly bring about more growth in political and economic relations between Iran and Afghanistan,” Larijain told Muslimyar.
For his part, Muslimyar said that Afghanistan strongly condemns the U.S. unilateral sanctions against Iran as the Islamic Republic has been supportive of Afghanistan in all these years.
“The Americans are not after genuine peace in Afghanistan and they are the common enemies of Iran, Afghanistan, Islam and the human kind” the Afghan speaker remarked, referring to the suspicious growth in the number of ISIL terrorists in his war-torn country.
On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump stated that he could win the war in Afghanistan within a week but did not want to kill 10 million people.
In a similar comment on July 22, Trump had stated that he could end the war in Afghanistan “in a week”, but that doing so would cause millions of deaths.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry lashed out at Trump for his racist comments against Afghans, calling them a threat to international peace.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyed Abbas Mousavi said that Iran will stand by the resistant people of Afghanistan, Afghan government and its scholars.
In December 2018, Tehran announced that it had been holding talks with the Afghan Taliban, nonetheless with the knowledge of the Afghan government.
Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, made the announcement during a visit to Kabul on December 26.
Shamkhani said the talks between Iran and the Taliban were held “to help curb the security problems in Afghanistan.”
“The Afghan government has been informed of the communications and talks carried out with the Taliban, and this process will continue,” Shamkhani added.
Shamkhani broke the story just days after the Taliban attended reconciliation talks with a U.S. peace envoy in Abu Dhabi.