AVA - Pakistan hopes US leaves Afghanistan as friend, not failure: DG ISPR

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan army said on Saturday that the country hopes to see the United States leaving Afghanistan as a friend, not as a failure.

Major General Asif Ghafoor, the director general of army’s media wing, in an interview to the Voice of America said before the Doha talks between Taliban and the United States:
“This political reconciliation must succeed. ... We wish that the U.S. leaves Afghanistan as a friend of the region, not as a failure,” Pakistan army spokesman Major-General Asif Ghafoor said before the Doha talks.”

The army media representative, in a separate interview to Arab News, said that Pakistan has played its role in bringing the Taliban group to the negotiating table.
“We are a facilitator. We have done our job of bringing them to the negotiating table. What is discussed and how the process moves forward will depend on progress during every meeting,” he said.
Meanwhile, sources within the Taliban have confirmed that the Taliban and US has finalised clauses to be included in a draft agreement to end the 17-year-old Afghan war.
The group offered assurances that Afghanistan will not be allowed to be used by al-Qaeda and Daesh militants to attack the United States and its allies - a key early demand of Washington.
The Taliban says that they will finalize a timeline for a ceasefire in Afghanistan but will only open talks with Afghan representatives once the ceasefire is implemented.
Other clauses include a deal over the exchange and release of prisoners from the warring sides, the removal of an international travel ban on several Taliban leaders by the United States and the prospect of an interim Afghan government after the ceasefire is struck, the Taliban sources said.