Kabul-Taliban talks edge closer

RENEWING US HOPE: WANTS NEGOTIATED SETTLEMENT

The United States has renewed hope that the longest war in its history may be closer to a negotiated settlement, after Afghan-led talks went better than expected this week.

After 17 years of guerrilla conflict and several diplomatic false starts, US officials were pleased, both publicly and privately, by this week’s international conference in Kabul, which they see as a step towards talks between President Ashraf Ghani’s government and the Taliban.

Ghani played his role to a tee, holding out his hand to the Taliban and suggesting that if they join talks they could be recognised as a political party with a legitimate role in Afghanistan’s future.

Washington will not seek a unilateral deal with the Taliban to extricate itself from a long, inconclusive conflict, but will instead encourage an Afghan dialogue. And just as US policy makers have concluded the US-backed Afghan military cannot win a decisive victory, they now believe the Taliban must understand it will never retake Kabul.

US State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert made it clear that Washington is glad that Ghani used the conference to signal to the absent Taliban that “there are no preconditions for peace”.

Since a US-led intervention in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks overthrew the Taliban regime, the Islamist group has been under pressure to renounce its hardline ideals. But Ghani and US officials now accept that the Taliban can enter peace talks without first accepting the new democratic constitution and its protections for women and minority groups. The hope is that the group will split from internationally oriented extremists like al-Qaeda and find a role in a new Afghanistan, with an evolving constitution as the “end condition” of talks.