Taliban are refusing to talk with the Afghan government because they believe that doing so would mean accepting its legitimacy and giving credit to President Ashraf Ghani as he seeks re-election, US peace envoy said Tuesday.

AVA- Speaking in an exclusive interview with local 1TV, Zalmay Khalilzad said that both the Afghan elites and the Taliban want a solution to the issue, adding they could seek UN help.
Asked about possibility of an interim government, Khalilzad said that it was an issue which could be discussed in intra-Afghan dialogue.
Khalilzad said that there was still no consensus in the anti-Taliban side on how much sacrifice should be made in peace process.
Asked if the sides don’t reach an agreement, the envoy said that it would mean missing a historic opportunity. “It would be cruelty against the Afghan people.”
“Peace requires sacrifice,” Khalilzad said echoing Ghani’s remarks that the peace process carries possible risks.
Khalilzad said that “lessons should be learnt from the past, but it doesn’t mean war should continue.”
According to the diplomat, peace is US’s highest priority in Afghanistan. He believes the road to peace carries domestic, regional and international complexities.
Referring to latest round talks with the Taliban in Qatar, Khalilzad said that there was some progress in talks with the Taliban, mostly on preventing Afghanistan from being used by terrorists. He said that the US could close its bases in Afghanistan if the post-peace deal Afghan government requests so and if the problem of terrorism is solved.
Asked about perception that the US was considering its own interests in dealing with the Taliban, Khalilzad rejected it saying the US wanted to leave a good legacy in Afghanistan.
“We want to leave a good legacy in Afghanistan. We want to have a long-term relationship with Afghanistan, having various dimensions including economic, public, political, diplomatic and security,” Khalilzad said.
“We don’t want repeat of what happened after Soviet Union’s withdrawal from Afghanistan,” Khalilzad said referring to the bloody civil war.
Khalilzad also said that the Taliban believe that their return would not be in the same way as it was in the 1990s.