Afghan President's palace says intra-Afghan talks in Qatar canceled

On Thursday, media reported citing sources that the Afghan government's delegation that was due to travel to Doha to participate in the intra-Afghan conference had postponed its visit due to issues relating to the conference participant list.

"After completion of preparations of the delegation for going to (Qatar), Qatar government sent a new list which was not balanced in terms of involvement of the people of Afghanistan and in other words it was a disrespect to the national will of the Afghan people and this is not acceptable to the people of Afghanistan," the statement said as quoted by TOLOnews broadcaster.

According to the statement, a group of Afghan politicians discussed the situation with President Ashraf Ghani and agreed that the Qatari government must allow the attendance of the Afghan delegation selected by Afghanistan.

"As far as the government of Qatar could not practice our legitimate suggestion, the Doha conference was canceled," the president's palace noted.

On Tuesday, the Afghan government released a list of 250 people who were expected to participate in the meeting with the Taliban movement in Doha. Taliban, on its part, expressed the movement's disagreement with the list of participants, which included various political and religious figures, journalists, government officials and, for the first time in the history of Afghan peace talks, women.

Afghanistan has long been in a state of turmoil, with the government fighting the Taliban radical movement, which has been holding vast territories in rural areas under its control and regularly launches offensives in key big cities. The situation has been exacerbated by the activities of the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, banned in Russia), which has been operating in Afghanistan since 2015.