Kabul, Jan. 9, (dpa/GNA) – Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on Saturday that his goal was to hand over power to an “elected successor,” amid calls for an interim government as a path to peace with the Taliban.
“My basic goal is to be able to hand power, through the will of the people, to my elected successor,” Ghani told Christiane Amanpour in an interview with CNN.
“We’re not a type of society that the Taliban-type approach of the past can be imposed on us. That was the peace of the graveyard,” he said.
Last week, a member of the Afghan negotiating team Hafiz Mansour said that certain countries were willing to help Afghanistan establish an interim government that would pave the way for a form of government that agreed upon in peace talks with the Taliban.
The Afghan negotiating team – which arrived in Doha on Tuesday – will have their first session with the Taliban on Saturday, a spokesman for the Afghan National Reconciliation Council said.
Prior to their trip to the Qatari capital, the Afghan team was hoping to discuss a ceasefire. The Taliban, however, has repeatedly rejected a ceasefire in the past.
Peace talks between representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban started in mid-September. It took about three months for the two sides to agree on key procedural issues for the negotiations.
GNA