Foreign Ministers and representatives from almost 30 countries and international organisations have arrived in the Qatari capital of Doha to witness the signing of the historic US-Taliban peace deal on Saturday, which comes after 18 months of negotiations between the two sides.

While US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will attend the signing in Doha, American Defence Secretary Mark Esper and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg will be in Kabul on Saturday, according to presidential spokesman Sediq Sediqqi, who said the two key officials will announce a joint declaration with President Ashraf Ghani.

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Earlier on Friday, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi arrived in Doha, where he told media, “Tomorrow (Saturday) is a big day for Afghanistan and for the Afghans. It’s a great opportunity.

“Afghanistan is moving towards peace and reconciliation. So, tomorrow can set the tone for an inclusive intra-Afghan dialogue.”

Uzbekistan’s Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov said he remains optimistic about the Afghan peace process, and that there was a need to work together to address the problems in the war-torn country, as also due to its regional importance.

“Uzbekistan is the immediate neighbour of Afghanistan and over the past many centuries, we had very close humanitarian culture, economic ties with Afghan people.

“We have to work together to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan because this is in the common interest of all people of our common region,” he told TOLO News.

In a statement on Thursday, the Presidential Palace called the team “a group to establish initial contacts” with the Taliban and they were meeting with the militant group at their request and also of the US, TOLO News reported.

This meeting will be the first between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

According to the sources, India’s Ambassador to Qatar will also attend the signing of the landmark peace deal between the US and the Afghan Taliban in Doha.

Sources said India has been invited by the Qatar government for the ceremony where the deal will be signed and Indian ambassador P Kumaran will attend it. It will be for the first time India will officially attend an event involving the Taliban.

More than 10,000 civilians were killed or wounded in Afghanistan’s war last year, the United Nations announced Saturday, as a historic partial truce kicked in across the country. India did not recognise Afghanistan diplomatically when Taliban was ruling the country from 1996 to 2002.

Last year, in September, Zalmay Khalilzad, Washington’s Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation had said that the US and Taliban are “at the threshold of an agreement” that would reduce violence and open the door for Afghans to sit together and negotiate.

On December 19, Khalilzad also said that the US and Taliban were approaching an important stage in the Afghan peace process.

But US President Donald Trump called an abrupt halt to the process after an American was killed in a Taliban attack in Kabul

The draft agreement ensured that over 5,000 US troops will withdraw from five American bases in the first 135 days after the signing of the deal.

Since the end of the NATO combat mission in January 2015, the US maintains one contingent within the framework of the new allied mission of advising Afghan troops and another for “anti-terrorist” operations.

(With inputs from agency)