Taliban Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said regional tensions, including the situation in Iran and security clashes with Pakistan, were among the main subjects of recent meetings between officials from Turkey and Qatar and Taliban officials in Kabul.<\/p>\n
In an interview with Al Arabiya, he said these developments could have a direct impact on regional security, including in Afghanistan, Qatar and Turkey.<\/p>\n
According to Qani, the meetings also stressed joint security cooperation, counterterrorism, efforts to counter cross-border threats and the prevention of drug trafficking. He also said that as regional challenges have grown, coordination between Kabul, Doha and Ankara has become more important.<\/p>\n
The Taliban Interior Ministry spokesman added that the recent tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan were also an important part of the talks. He said the sides emphasized continuing efforts to reduce tensions and improve relations between Kabul and Islamabad.<\/p>\n
The remarks come as Islamabad has repeatedly claimed in recent months that armed groups opposed to the Pakistani government, including the Pakistan Taliban and some Baloch groups, use Afghan territory to organise attacks. The Taliban administration has rejected those claims, saying insecurity in Pakistan is an internal matter for that country.<\/p>\n
Qani said the meetings took place on Tuesday and Wednesday last week, and that Ibrahim Kalin, head of Turkey\u2019s intelligence agency, and Hamad bin Khamis Al Kubaisi, deputy head of Qatar\u2019s National Security Council, held separate talks with senior Taliban officials. In Kabul, Kalin met Abdul Haq Wasiq, the intelligence chief, Mohammad Yaqoob Mujahid, acting defence minister, and Sirajuddin Haqqani, acting interior minister of the Taliban administration.<\/p>\n
After ending his trip to Afghanistan, Ibrahim Kalin travelled on to Pakistan. Although Pakistani officials did not formally announce the visit, Turkish media confirmed it.<\/p>\n
These security exchanges took place as Kabul and Islamabad have faced serious tensions in recent months and militant attacks have continued in Pakistan\u2019s border regions. Most recently, at least 31 people were killed in a suicide attack on a mosque inside a police compound in the city of Kohat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and the Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen group affiliated with Hafiz Gul Bahadur claimed responsibility.<\/p>\n
Kohat is one of the cities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province in northwestern Pakistan that has repeatedly seen militant attacks and security tensions linked to Afghanistan\u2019s border regions in recent years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taliban officials say talks with Turkey and Qatar focused on Iran, Pakistan tensions, security cooperation and cross-border threats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}