<p>Afghan government negotiators in Qatar have offered the Taliban a power-sharing deal in return for an end to fighting in the country, a government negotiating source told AFP on Thursday.</p>.<p><strong>Read | <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/international/afghan-cities-taken-over-or-contested-by-taliban-1018942.html" target="_blank">Afghan cities taken over or contested by Taliban</a></strong></p>.<p>"Yes, the government has submitted a proposal to Qatar as mediator. The proposal allows the Taliban to share power in return for a halt in violence in the country," the source said.</p>.<p>The Taliban seized the strategic Afghan city of Ghazni Thursday, just 150 kilometres (95 miles) from Kabul, their most important gain in a lightning offensive that has seen them overrun 10 provincial capitals in a week.</p>.<p>The interior ministry confirmed the fall of the city, which lies along the major Kabul-Kandahar highway and serves as a gateway between the capital and militant strongholds in the south.</p>.<p>"The enemy took control," spokesman Mirwais Stanikzai said in a message to media, adding fighting and resistance was still going on.</p>.<p>The government has now effectively lost most of northern and western Afghanistan and is left holding a scattered archipelago of contested cities also dangerously at risk of falling to the Taliban.</p>
<p>Afghan government negotiators in Qatar have offered the Taliban a power-sharing deal in return for an end to fighting in the country, a government negotiating source told AFP on Thursday.</p>.<p><strong>Read | <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/international/afghan-cities-taken-over-or-contested-by-taliban-1018942.html" target="_blank">Afghan cities taken over or contested by Taliban</a></strong></p>.<p>"Yes, the government has submitted a proposal to Qatar as mediator. The proposal allows the Taliban to share power in return for a halt in violence in the country," the source said.</p>.<p>The Taliban seized the strategic Afghan city of Ghazni Thursday, just 150 kilometres (95 miles) from Kabul, their most important gain in a lightning offensive that has seen them overrun 10 provincial capitals in a week.</p>.<p>The interior ministry confirmed the fall of the city, which lies along the major Kabul-Kandahar highway and serves as a gateway between the capital and militant strongholds in the south.</p>.<p>"The enemy took control," spokesman Mirwais Stanikzai said in a message to media, adding fighting and resistance was still going on.</p>.<p>The government has now effectively lost most of northern and western Afghanistan and is left holding a scattered archipelago of contested cities also dangerously at risk of falling to the Taliban.</p>