Khalilzad quits as US spl envoy to Afghanistan

WASHINGTON: Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special envoy for Afghanistan Reconciliation who negotiated the February 2020 accord that led to the withdrawal of US-led international forces, has resigned.

He will be succeeded by his deputy Thomas West, who was part of the national security team of US President Joe Biden when he was vice-president.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken announced Khalilzad’s departure on Monday, saying, “As he steps down from his role, I extend my gratitude for his decades of service to the American people.” In his resignation letter to Blinken, Zalmay wrote, as reported by The Washington Post, “I decided that now is the right time… at a juncture when we are entering a new phase in our Afghanistan policy.”

Khalilzad was a familiar figure in New Delhi where he dropped by often to keep the Indian government in the loop on the Afghan peace process. But the US evidently did not tell India everything that was happening as external affairs minister S Jaishankar recently said that “we were not taken into confidence on various aspects” of the 2020 agreement. Khalilzad, an Afghan-American, was named special representative in 2018 by then secretary of state Mike Pompeo to lead negotiations for a settlement and pave the way for the withdrawal of US forces.

Khalilzad failed to bring the Taliban and the elected government of then president Ashraf Ghani to the table, but did succeed in getting a deal signed by the US with the Taliban in February 2020, which provided the basis for the withdrawal of US-led troops, completed in August.