Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Peace talks began between the Taliban and the Afghanistan government.
Permanent cease-fire, power sharing at issue
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Afghanistan’s warring sides started talks for the first time, bringing together the Taliban and delegates appointed by the Afghan government Saturday for historic meetings aimed at ending decades of war.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attended the opening ceremony in Qatar, where the meetings are taking place and where the Taliban maintain a political office.
“Each of you carry a great responsibility,” Pompeo told the participants. “You have an opportunity to overcome your divisions.”
While Saturday’s opening was about ceremony, the hard talks will be held behind closed doors and over several sessions. But following a meeting with the Taliban on Saturday in Doha, Washington’s peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said the U.S. and every Afghan would like to see a deal “sooner rather than later.”
The sides will be tackling tough issues including the terms of a permanent cease-fire, the rights of women and minorities, and the disarming of tens of thousands of Taliban fighters and militias loyal to warlords, some of them aligned with the government.
Khalilzad said a quick, permanent cease-fire is unlikely but held out hope for a gradual reduction in violence until both sides are ready to end their fighting. Mistrust runs deep on both sides, he said.
The Afghan negotiation teams are also expected to discuss constitutional changes and power sharing during their talks. Subsequent rounds of talks could be held outside Doha. Germany is among the countries offering to host future negotiations.
Even seemingly mundane issues like the flag and the name of the country — the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan or the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as the Taliban’s administration was known when it ruled — could find their way onto the negotiation table and roil tempers.
Among the government-appointed negotiators are four women, who have vowed to preserve women’s rights in any power-sharing deal with the hard-line Taliban. The rights to work, education and participation in political life were denied to women when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan for five years.
The Taliban were ousted in 2001 by a U.S.-led coalition for harboring Osama bin Laden, the architect of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America.
No women are on the Taliban’s negotiation team, led by their chief justice, Abdul Hakim. The insurgent movement has said it accepted a woman’s right to work, go to school and participate in politics but would not accept a woman as president or chief justice.
Conservative members of the government-appointed High Council for National Reconciliation, which is overseeing the talks, also hold that women can’t serve in either post.