Afghan Taliban accepts "significant reduction" in violence: Afghan president

KABUL–Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have held a telephone conversation discussing the ongoing U.S.-Taliban talks.

During the conversation on Tuesday evening, Pompeo informed Ghani of a notable progress made in the ongoing peace talks with the Taliban.

"The Secretary informed me about the Taliban's proposal with regards to bringing a significant and enduring reduction in violence," Ghani wrote on Twitter.

"This is a welcoming development and I am pleased that our principal position on peace thus far has begun to yield fruitful results. Our primary objective is to end the senseless bloodshed," he said.

A U.S. delegation and Taliban representatives hold a couple of meetings for negotiations since early this month. On Sunday, the U.S. special peace envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad met with Mullah Baradar, a co-founder of Taliban and several other Taliban leaders.

Khalilzad returned to Doha over the weekend, after a trip to Belgium's Brussels, Pakistan's Islamabad and Afghanistan's Kabul, discussing the U.S.-Taliban talks with NATO, Pakistani and Afghan leaders.

"To do so, the Afghan people stand with us with their full consensus and I assure them that their leadership maintains the courage, competence, and the necessary resources to achieve this objective," Ghani said.

Afghanistan will manage the next steps in a manner that positively supports the overall peace process and will provide latest developments to the public, according to the Afghan leader.