The Assistant Foreign Minister and Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, H E Lolwah bint Rashid Al Khater (pictured), has termed the deal signed between the US and Taliban officials as a ‘historic agreement’.
She thanked all the stakeholders for their supports to achieve this deal.
“It is a historic agreement. We are very happy about this, happy for the people of Afghanistan. We are thankful to all the parties who participated in this and those who supported us,” said H E Lolwah bint Rashid Al Khater, talking exclusively to The Peninsula on the sidelines of agreement signing ceremony held at Sheraton Hotel, yesterday. “We are very thankful to the US administration, President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. On the other hand, we are also grateful to the Afghan government and Taliban,” she said.
Qatar has played a very crucial role in making this peace deal a reality. Last year in July, Qatar had hosted Intra-Afghan peace talks. Around 50 leading Afghan politicians and civil society activists had met in Doha with a team of the Taliban in two-day Intra-Afghan Conference for Peace hosted jointly by Qatar and Germany.
Talking about the peace process, H E Lolwah bint Rashid Al Khater said that Qatar will support any initiative that will bring long-lasting peace in Afghanistan. Experts believed that Qatar’s hosting the Intra-Afghan peace talks had pushed the peace process forward.
“This process has been a two track process. One is the US-Taliban track and other track is the intra Afghan-Afghan dialogue. Last year, we hosted the intra afghan-afghan dialogue, and we will try to support any initiatives along those lines,” H E Lolwah bint Rashid Al Khater said.
H E stressed that Qatar would like to see sustainable peace in Afghanistan.