Substantial talks became impossible because he would not retract his threat and the BMA refused to talk unless he did.
"How can you have substantial talks when you have only news about bombing and shelling?" De Mistura asked journalists afterwards.
Unlike the Taliban, who have yet to engage in any substantial talks, Hezb-i-Islami delegations have repeatedly traveled from havens in Pakistan to Kabul since 2010.
Referring to Mr. Karzai, Martine van Bijlert, a director of the independent Afghan Analysts Network, said: "He is not interested in substantial talks.
The EU is refusing substantial talks until the government triggers the article 50 exit process; some European officials think the British do not have much to say.
Hasan Rouhani said he is "ready to engage in serious and substantial talks without wasting time" and voiced hope that interactions with the West should be based on "talks, not threats".
When corporate delegations trudge up to Capitol Hill in Washington, Mr. Nielsen said, it is "very hard to engage lawmakers on this issue, which makes it more difficult to have controversial or substantial talks".
The only substantial talks that took place in the year before Mr. Rabbani's assassination were between American and German officials on the one hand and a former secretary to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban's reclusive leader, on the other.
In September the Kosovar authorities destroyed equipment that had enabled Serbian mobile operators to provide coverage to Serb enclaves in central and southern Kosovo.Getting substantial talks under way may be difficult, though.
"It is necessary to make the Ukrainian authorities start substantial talks [with the rebels]," he said.
But we cannot expect substantial talks for even such a first-step project to take place if China continues to be demonized abroad.
