The fifth of round of talks between the United States officials and the Taliban representatives will be held in Doha, Qatar, on February 25, but sources said some members of the Taliban will not attend the talks.

According to sources, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, head of Taliban’s Qatar office and an influential figure among the group, as well as other members of the group will not attend the talks as their names are on the UN blacklist.

However, US Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad who met Russian Envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kaboluv on Friday said they discussed travel barriers to talks and that “they will explore options for securing UN travel waivers for Taliban negotiators to participate in peace talks”.

Wahid Muzhda, an Afghan analyst, said withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan and Taliban’s post-peace relations with other insurgent groups will be discussed in the talks. 

“This is an important meeting as Taliban has said it is important because a decision will be made on a fundamental issue which will help the peace process,” Muzhda said.  

According to him, a timetable will be announced for withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan and, meanwhile, the issue that other countries should not be threatened from Afghanistan’s territory will be discussed in the meeting.

“The US and Taliban have formed two working groups in this regard and the groups will share the results of their discussions in this meeting,” Muzhda, who is familiar with US-Taliban talks, said.

A number of political parties suggest that any talks which are held on peace should have an intra-Afghan format and that shortcomings of Moscow talks should not be repeated in upcoming meetings on peace.   

“The suggestion of us and of political parties is that if the meeting is an intra-Afghan meeting, it should not have the shortcomings of Moscow meeting, because in that meeting government representatives had not attended and that was the biggest weakness of the meeting,” said Humayun Jarir, spokesman of Hizb-e-Islami.

The High Peace Council (HPC) spokesman Sayed Ehsan Taheri said the upcoming Qatar talks is not a real peace talk, but is a talk for paving the ground for direct talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

“This meeting is not a meeting for peace talks, but it goes ahead in cooperation with the US for facilitation, speeding and preparing the condition for the Afghan peace process. The Afghan government is not needed to attend this meeting, because it is not a decision-making meeting,” said Taheri. 

So far, Taliban has refused to meet the Afghan government. 

This comes after the Afghan government has announced a consultative Loya Jirga, a traditional grand assembly, will be held in March to gather views and opinions about the peace talks.