Turkey's foreign minister, US envoy discuss Afghan peace

ANKARA

The Turkish foreign minister said on July 15 that he discussed Afghan peace with U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan reconstruction.

Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu met Zalmay Khalilzad during his visit to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan.

Çavuşoğlu tweeted that he "exchanged views on the Afghan peace process and regional developments."

Earlier, he also met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his counterpart Haneef Atmar.

Far ahead of Washington's initial pledge of a complete troop departure by Sept. 11, which was recently modified by US President Joe Biden to Aug. 31, the Americans vacated Bagram Airfield, the biggest military base in the war-ravaged country, and handed it to Afghan National Army earlier this month.

The Taliban recently claimed to have taken control of more than 85% of Afghanistan, with government forces surrounding and abandoning outposts.

The Afghan Defense Ministry, however, has rejected the Taliban's claims, asserting that hundreds of insurgents were killed in retaking the fallen districts.

Meanwhile, Çavuşoğlu also met on July 16 his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan.

In a tweet, Çavuşoğlu said the two "followed up on the issues discussed during our Presidents’ recent phone conversation."

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Xi Jinping held a phone conference on Tuesday, and discussed enhancing cooperation in many fields, including ways to improve bilateral relations, Uyghurs, the fight against COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine development. 

The top Turkish diplomat also met his Kuwaiti counterpart Ahmed Nasser Mohammed Al Sabah to "further develop our cooperation in tourism, culture, health and defense industry."