Taliban and Afghan officials ‘in ceasefire talks’
SENIOR Taliban officials have been secretly negotiating with Afghan officials on a possible ceasefire, the Pentagon said on Wednesday, even as US forces killed over 50 Taliban leaders in a series of strikes.
“A lot of the diplomatic activity and dialogue is occurring off the stage, and it’s occurring at multiple levels,” General John Nicholson said to reporters at the Pentagon.
He would not identify the figures involved in the negotiations, except to say that they included mid- and senior-level Taliban officials.
“I should point out they met in secret. This is how they were able to advance the talks,” he said, adding that the success of the effort depends in part on the “confidentiality of the process.”
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in late February proposed peace talks with the Taliban, saying they could be recognised as a political party if they accepted a ceasefire and recognised the country’s 2004 constitution.
The Taliban have not officially responded, but deadly attacks have proliferated since then, particularly in Kabul, which has become the most dangerous place in the country for civilians. But Nicholson, who has sought to drive the Taliban to the negotiating table by bringing to bear increased US military pressure, maintained that violence and progress can coexist.
He likened the situation in Afghanistan to that of Colombia, where the fighting continued up until the FARC guerrilla group and the government signed a peace accord in 2016.
‘Fifty Taliban leaders killed’
Meanwhile, US forces killed over 50 Taliban leaders in a series of strikes against those behind a recent attack in the Helmand provincial capital of Farah, Nicholson said on Wednesday.
After pushing out fighters in Farah, Afghan and US forces continued to pursue them, Nicholson told reporters at the Pentagon via video link.
Under surveillance by the Marines, the Taliban fighters returned to their Helmand stronghold, a centre for poppy cultivation. On May 24, they were spotted in a known Taliban command centre in Musa Qala.
“What it looks like is it was a group of commanders, meeting in part to discuss the operation in Farah that many of them had just participated in,” said General Nicholson.
“And they obviously thought they were meeting in relative safety in Musa Qala, but our intelligence was able to identify the group and effectively conduct the strike.”
“I would not call it strategic significance, but it definitely has a significant local significance in terms of the fight in Southern Afghanistan,” he said.
In a statement, the US command in Afghanistan said the strike resulted in “more than 50 casualties”, among them the number two Taliban leader in Helmand, Abdul Manan, and several district governors and leaders in Kandahar, Kunduz, Herat, Farah, Uruzgan and Helmand provinces.