Taliban defeated politically, reacts Saleh to Baradar’s letter

KABUL (Pajhwok): Reacting to a letter from Taliban’s leader Mullah Baradar to the people of America, First Vice President Amrullah Saleh on Tuesday said the Taliban had been defeated politically.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the head of the Taliban’s Qatar office, wrote a letter to the United States, urging the Americans to abide by the Doha accords because the Afghan conflict could not be resolved militarily.

He had claimed that the people of Afghanistan supported the Taliban and that the Taliban were committed to women’s rights and freedom of expression in the light of Islamic principles.

But Saleh wrote in response to Baradar’s letter on his Facebook page: “The fact that Mullah Baradar claims that the majority of Afghans support him is a fantasy

“They don’t have support. If so, why are they afraid of elections? Why is there no election or national consensus in this group’s dictionary?”

The VP added that the Taliban had been defeated politically because they had no message for the people other than killing people.

The First Vice President said: “The people’s decades-long struggle is summed up in one word and that is the election. The time for coup d’etat is now over. Change must come through voting.”

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