Officials from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) have met with the two presidential candidates and reportedly pushed them closer to a settlement of their disputes, which remain the last big obstacle to a conclusion of this year’s election.
 
The UN said both Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai have verbally committed to Jeff Feltman, the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, to resume their political talks and follow through on the promises they made during negotiations last month, which were primarily brokered by the UN and U.S. diplomats.
 
“In the meetings, both candidates have vowed to continue their efforts and both have stressed on the implementation of their commitments,” UNAMA spokesman Nazifullah Salarzai said on Friday. “The Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations has emphasized on successfully ending the presidential election and both candidates moving forward to reach a political deal soon, and Afghanistan will witness a peaceful power transition,” Salarzai added.  

Before this, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke to the presidential candidates via phone and encouraged them to begin direct talks again in order to reach a final deal acceptable to both sides.
 
The political negotiations between the presidential candidates, which have been going on for over a month now, reached an impasse on Monday. The two teams were said to be at odds over the results of the election and the authorities to be granted to the Chief Executive, a post central to the national unity government framework they agreed to in early August.

Over the past few days, the UN and U.S. have scrambled to try and salvage the negotiations before the Independent Election Commission (IEC) announces the results of its vote audit, which election officials said they plan to do next week.

But on Friday both campaigns expressed optimism about the possibility of them reaching an agreement.

“The Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations held separate meetings with the candidates on Monday and urged them to abide by their commitments and undertake practical steps in forming the national unity government and restart the political talks,” Ghani spokesman Tahir Zuhair said.

“Although there is no breakthrough in the stalemate, we are hopeful that the candidates will start negotiations through the ongoing efforts,” Asim, a member of Abdullah's camp, told TOLOnews.

Despite warnings from the Abdullah side that they would reject the results if they come before the negotiations complete, the IEC has said it will announce the outcome of the audit next week regardless of where discussions between the candidates stand.

On Friday, the IEC completed the 8th round of vote invalidations. Chairman Ahmad Yousaf Nuristani said results from 1,459 polling sites were verified as credible and 2,304 were sent for recounting.

“From the total number of 4,263 polling sites, 405 had technically issues, so we went them to the IEC stock to reinvestigate the votes and the auditing of those sites will be completed by Saturday,” Nuristani said. He added that IEC officials planned to meet on Sunday in order to make a final decision about the 405 sites.