NEW YORK: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for peaceful dialogue between warring parties to end the 17-year-old conflict in Afghanistan, as the Taliban announced the start of its annual spring offensive.
“We need to see less fighting and more dialogue,” the secretary-general’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told reporters at the regular noon briefing on Thursday.
He was was asked for UN chief’s reaction to the Wednesday’s announcement by the Taliban of the Al Khandaq campaign that marks the symbolic start of the fighting season.
The spokesman said that, through its presence, the UN was doing all it can for a peaceful reconciliation in order to bring peace and development to Afghanistan.
Guterres has all along maintained that there was no military solution to the Afghan conflict.
