Following remarks by the former US envoy for Afghan peace Zalmay Khalilzad over the failure of the Afghan peace process, former vice president Amrullah Saleh has asked former president Ashraf Ghani to release the tapes secretly recorded during peace talks with Khalilzad and other foreign officials.

Khalilzad in his recent interview with CNN said that Ghani was thinking the US would never leave Afghanistan, that he had miscalculated the strength of the Afghan armed forces and was insisting on remaining on power. According to Khalilzad, these issues created problems in the way of the peace talks and increased the gap between the Ghani government and the Taliban in reaching a political settlement.

Reacting to the remarks, Saleh in a series of tweets has asked Ghani to release the tapes recorded in July and August during talks with Khalilzad and some other foreign officials.

“I call on Ashraf Ghani to release the tapes ( esp. Jul/Aug) of the conversations with Khalilzad and other relevant foreign diplomats on peace process to counter the growing propaganda that it was and is all the Afghan fault. I know these tapes exist & hope you have them. This is the time,” Saleh tweeted.

According to Saleh, after distrust arose between Ghani and Khalilzad during the peace talks, it was decided to secretly record the talks with Khalilzad and other foreign officials and it was done systematically.

Saleh said that now is the time to release these tapes because Khalilzad keeps blaming the Afghans over the peace talks' failure.

Meanwhile, officials of the Islamic Emirate said the Doha deal was agreed and signed in public and there is no secrecy about it. “The Islamic Emirate is responsible for the Afghan nation. All the talks were done in the way it appeared in the Doha deal and there is nothing secret,” Islamic Emirate deputy spokesperson Bilal Karimi said.