Taliban say they handed truce offer to American diplomat
ISLAMABAD — The Taliban have given the U.S. envoy their offer for a cease-fire in Afghanistan that would last seven to 10 days, Taliban officials familiar with the negotiations said Thursday.
The offer is seen as an opportunity to open a window to an eventual peace deal that would allow the United States to bring home its estimated 13,000 troops and end the 18-year war in Afghanistan, America’s longest conflict.
The cease-fire offer was handed to Zalmay Khalilzad, Washington’s envoy for talks with the insurgents, late Wednesday in Qatar, a Gulf Arab country where the Taliban maintain a political office.
Khalilzad has been pressing for a ceasefire, but it wasn’t clear whether the Taliban proposal would be enough to allow for talks between the Taliban and the U.S. to restart.
The U.S. State Department declined to comment.
Previously, Khalilzad said a U.S.-Taliban deal would also include the start of negotiations among Afghans on both sides of the conflict to determine the makeup of a postwar Afghanistan. Those talks would tackle thorny issues such as a permanent ceasefire, women’s and minority rights, and the fate of thousands of Taliban fighters, as well as militias loyal to Kabul’s warlords.
But the Taliban have been refusing to talk with the Kabul government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah. The two are currently fighting over who won last year’s presidential elections. The initial vote count gave Ghani the win, but Abdullah, who came in second, is contesting the count. A final outcome hasn’t been announced by Afghanistan’s election commission.
In September, the Taliban and the U.S. appeared close to signing a deal when an upsurge in Taliban attacks, including the killing of another U.S. soldier, prompted President Donald Trump to scrap the talks. On Thanksgiving, during his first visit to U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Trump softened his stance, saying the Taliban were ready to make a deal, although both Kabul and Washington insisted the Taliban would have to show a sign of good faith by reducing their attacks.
In December, the Taliban leadership headquartered in Pakistan agreed to put forth a temporary cease-fire offer after weeks of consultation.