Wahid Omar, President Ashraf Ghani's senior advisor for public and strategic affairs, on Thursday said that the Afghan government wants to gauge the Taliban’s will for the peace process, and “this could be seen in a ceasefire.”

The Afghan government has made progress in meeting anti-corruption benchmarks but "serious challenges remain to fighting corruption -- resource shortfalls, impunity of powerful individuals, declining activity at corruption courts," said John F. Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, in a new report released on Thursday.