KABUL - While maintaining cordial relations with the outside world, the Taliban are harboring hostility toward Afghans, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) said on Sunday.

Janan Musazai, commenting a Taliban delegation’s recent visit to Tehran, said Iranian authorities had expressed their unawareness about the trip.

The rebel movement had sent its representatives to Japan and France in the recent past for informal talks with different people, the spokesman added.

“Regrettably enough, the Taliban’s relations with foreign countries are warm but they remain antagonistic toward Afghans. They are killing Afghans in terrorist attacks,” he remarked.

However, the spokesman hoped one day the fighters would honestly join the peace process and they would no longer need to visit regional countries.

Earlier in the day, President Hamid Karzai, heading a high-level delegation, left Kabul for Qatar to participate in a three-day international conference in Doha.

Organised jointly by Brookings Project on US Relations with the Islamic World and Qatar, the US-Islamic World Forum -- titled “A Decade of Dialogue” begins today at Ritz-Carlton in Doha.

Karzai will also hold talks with Qatari leaders on enhanced bilateral relations, as well as the ongoing process for reconciliation with the Afghan Taliban.

But Musazai would not say whether or not the president would discuss the opening of Taliban’s political bureau in Doha. The US and Afghanistan have already agreed on the creation of the office.

He explained the Afghan government’s conditions for the opening of Taliban’s office remained intact: The movement must renounce violence, cut links to Al-Qaeda, respect human rights and recognize the constitution.

Any peace negotiations must take place between the High Peace Council and authorized representatives of the Taliban, Musazai stressed, acknowledging Pakistan could play a constructive role in this regard.

He recalled President Karzai’s invitation to Pakistan’s new Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to visit Kabul. Although Sharif has accepted the invitation, dates of the visit are yet to be firmed up. (Pajhwok)