Differences Plague Afghanistan Peace Talks

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ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN—Even as representatives of the United States, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan met Monday to try to work together to bring peace to Afghanistan, officials from Afghanistan and Pakistan continued to publicly differ on the way forward.

The Pakistani prime minister’s adviser on foreign affairs, Sartaj Aziz, addressed the first meeting of the newly formed Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) by insisting that any “preconditions” to talks would be counterproductive and that threats of “military action against irreconcilables [factions that refuse to enter into peace negotiations] cannot precede the offer of talks to all the groups and their response to such offers.”