Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi, the Speaker of the Wolesi Jirga, Lower House of Parliament, who is also member of the High Advisory Board for Peace, said the Afghan government has been “sidelined” from the peace talks.

The High Advisory Board for Peace was announced on December 11 aimed at creating a national consensus for brokering purposeful peace talks with the Taliban.

Ibrahimi said any peace talks without the involvement of the Afghan government will have no results.

“It (Government) has been sidelined in this process. We reiterate our call on government’s leadership to put an end to the internal disagreements regarding peace as soon as possible,” said Ibrahimi.

“We call on the Taliban to come and make the peace process an Afghan-owned process,” said MP Mirbat Khan Mangal.

Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah's Office said government is aware of the whole process of peace talks and that the US efforts on peace talks are aimed to provide the condition for direct talks between government and Taliban.

“The talks are under the leadership of Afghans and all our international allies have a facilitating role,” said Omid Maisam, a spokesman for Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.

Ibrahimi’s remarks are expressed more than a week after Taliban met with the US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad for the fourth time.

“Cooperation and goodwill between the Afghan government and the US will accelerate peace efforts,” said Humayun Jarir, member of the political committee of political parties.

The fifth round of talks between the US officials and Taliban representatives will be held in Jeddah within the next few days.

The Afghan government has said they will send a negotiating team to Jeddah to talk to the Taliban.

Taliban in a statement on Saturday rejected the reports that the group will hold talks with Afghan government representatives in Saudi Arabia. The statement said their stance on talks with Afghan government remains as it is.

In Abu Dhabi talks this month, Taliban representatives “refused” to talk to the Afghan government’s negotiating team.