A new round of peace talks between the Taliban and the US started yesterday in Qatar, an official for the insurgents said, as the foes seek a way out of the US’ longest war.
The talks mark the sixth round of negotiations between the two sides and came as pressure builds for some sort of breakthrough in Afghanistan’s grueling conflict, with Washington jostling for a resolution.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the talks “will start in Doha today [Wednesday].”
The US embassy in Kabul did not immediately comment, but the US Department of State has already said its peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad would visit Doha, the Qatari capital, this month to meet the Taliban.
Khalilzad, who was born in Afghanistan and is a former US ambassador to the nation, has spent several months shuttling between Asian capitals and Washington in a bid to build consensus for a deal.
On Sunday, he said Washington was “a bit impatient” to end the war, given its US$45 billion annual cost to the US taxpayer and the continued toll on US forces, about 2,400 of whom have been killed since the US-led invasion in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
US President Donald Trump provided additional momentum when in December last year he told advisers that he wanted to pull about half of the 14,000 US troops from Afghanistan.
Khalilzad has repeatedly said that “there is no final agreement until everything is agreed,” but the basic framework for a deal would see the US agree to pull its forces from Afghanistan in return for the Taliban vowing to stop terror groups ever again using the nation as a safe haven, but none of the talks thus far have included the Afghan government, which the Taliban views as a puppet regime.
That means that even if the US and the Taliban can agree a deal to end the war and a timetable for an eventual troop withdrawal, the insurgents must still forge some kind of an accord with Afghan politicians and tribal elders before an enduring ceasefire could begin.
An initial attempt for an “intra-Afghan dialogue,” due to take place last month in Doha, collapsed in disarray at the last minute amid bickering over the lengthy list of delegates Afghan President Ashraf Ghani wanted to send.
Separately, thousands of Afghan politicians and representatives from various groups are meeting in Kabul this week at a loya jirga peace summit to discuss conditions under which they might envision some sort of deal with the Taliban.
Among top concerns are that the militant Islamist extremists would try to undo advances in women’s rights, media freedoms and legal protections.
Khalilzad went to Moscow last week, where Russia and China voiced support for the US plan for a peace deal and stressed the need for intra-Afghan dialogue that would see all sides in Afghanistan at a negotiating table.
Meanwhile, violence across Afghanistan continues apace and last month the Taliban announced the start of its annual spring offensive.
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
The Venezuelan government on Monday said that it would close its embassies in Norway and Australia, and open new ones in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe in a restructuring of its foreign service, after weeks of growing tensions with the US. The closures are part of the “strategic reassignation of resources,” Venezueland President Nicolas Maduro’s government said in a statement, adding that consular services to Venezuelans in Norway and Australia would be provided by diplomatic missions, with details to be shared in the coming days. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it had received notice of the embassy closure, but no
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
RSS