Taliban plan to open political office in Qatar

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan Taliban said Tuesday they have reached a preliminary agreement to set up a political office in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar, and asked for the release of prisoners held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Taliban office is seen by Western and Afghan officials as a crucial step to reaching a negotiated end to a decade of war in Afghanistan.

It was welcomed by one of the Afghan government’s top peace negotiators as a “gesture of good faith” from a group that previously has laid down strict preconditions for talks such as the withdrawal of all foreign forces.

The Afghan government had pushed for an office in Saudi Arabia or Turkey, but said in late December that Kabul would accept a Taliban liaison office in Qatar, if its officials retained control of the negotiating process.

The announcement came as three separate explosions killed 11 people, including four children and a police officer, and wounded dozens of others in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.

The call for a permanent international address for the Taliban came after a series of failed efforts toward talks by Afghans and their Western allies, some of them with interlocutors who turned out to be frauds.

An office in Qatar would also help address Afghan worries about the influence of the Pakistani government over the insurgent group, whose leaders are mostly believed to be based across the border from their homeland.