Taliban to hold further talks with US after meeting envoy

The Taliban said they would hold further talks with the US on ending the 17-year war in Afghanistan.

On Friday, the militants met a US delegation led by the recently appointed special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-born former US ambassador to Kabul.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The National the group called “the presence of foreign forces” the biggest obstacle to peace and said “Afghanistan is an Islamic country and has its own Islamic values and culture”.

“Keeping that in mind, efforts must be made towards a true and intra-Afghan solution. At the end both sides agreed to continue holding meetings in the future.”

The US delegation agreed to discuss a US withdrawal from Afghanistan in further meetings, a Taliban commander said.

There was no confirmation of the talks from the US, although a top Afghan government official said it was an “initial meeting to discuss peace”, but refused to disclose details.

Mr Khalilzad did not mention the meeting when he returned to Kabul on Saturday after travelling to Pakistan, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

“The US shares the aspirations of all Afghans for a peaceful Afghanistan where all Afghans see themselves included,” he said. “All citizens of Afghanistan must be a part of this reconciliation process.”

The Taliban spokesman said its negotiating team was made up of: Al Haj Stanikzai, the head of its political office; his deputy Mawlawi Hanafi; office members Sheikh Delawar, Qari Hanif, Al Haj Ahmadzai and Muhammad Shaheen.

The Taliban political office in Doha was opened in 2013 at the US request to initiate peace talks. The Taliban said they held direct talks with US officials for the first time in July, including with Alice Wells, the senior official for the State Department bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs.

There are 14,000 US troops in Afghanistan to provide training and support the Afghan forces after US President Donald Trump increased their numbers last year to counter the insurgents.

Despite tentative steps towards a peace process, the Taliban continue to attack Afghan security forces, with at least 17 soldiers killed and 11 abducted from an army camp in the western Farah province yesterday.

Last Monday, a day after Mr Khalilzad arrived in Kabul for his first visit since being appointed, they repeated their threat to disrupt parliamentary elections next week and warned Afghans not to take part.

“Khalilzad’s meetings with the Taliban are an indication that efforts towards launching a peace process are slowly but finally headed in the right direction,” Michael Kugelman, a senior associate at the Woodrow Wilson Centre for Scholars in Washington, told The National.

“But these efforts still remain in the ‘talks about talks’ phase. Until the Taliban gets an offer it can’t refuse it has little incentive to stop fighting a war it believes it’s winning.

“The good news is that there’s never been a better opportunity. The Taliban’s brief truce this year shows it’s willing to support peace. And the US willingness, with approval from Kabul, to speak directly with the Taliban means that a key Taliban precondition has been met.

“The question is, what else can the US and Afghanistan offer to the Taliban that is generous enough to the insurgents without being prohibitively risky to Washington and Kabul?”

Violence in the country has been escalating in the days before the October 20 parliamentary election. Twenty-two people were killed and 36 injured in a bombing at an election rally in the north-east province of Takhar on Saturday. There was no claim of responsibility.

The US Ambassador to Afghanistan, John Bass, condemned the violence and called on the Taliban to do the same.

“If the group is serious about the peace process it will do the same and punish those responsible,” Mr Bass said in a tweet.