You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Saker.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it.

My guest today has a central role in efforts to end one of the world's longest and most damaging conflicts, the war in Afghanistan.

Mohammed Umar Doudzai is President Ashrafgani's peace envoy and chief of the High Peace Council

of Afghanistan.

Having worked in the NGO sector, served as Interior Minister, and at times been a high-profile

critic of the current president, he knows all too well the depth

of the hostility between the Kabul government and the Taliban Islamist movement that ruled the

country until 2001. Earlier this month, hopes rose that a peace deal might just be at hand.

U.S. officials, Taliban leaders and Afghan government

representatives were supposed to travel to Qatar for an historic meeting, but it never happened.

The Taliban objected to the size and shape of the Kabul delegation, and a new cycle of

recrimination and violence began. Can the divisions ever be bridged?

Can the Taliban be a part of a future Afghan government?

Well, Mohammed Umar Daoudzai joins me now on the line from Kabul.

Welcome to Hard Talk.

Thank you, Stephen.

Let's start with those peace talks that were supposed to happen in Qatar.

The whole world was watching and waiting, and then they didn't happen.

What went wrong?

It was supposed to be the first intra-Afghan dialogue, actually not negotiation, sort of breaking the eyes to get familiar to each other. And because

of the complexities of the past and some weaknesses on both sides, I mean, more on the side of the host, it didn't happen, but hopefully it will resume soon.

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