Joint Chiefs Chairman Milley in surprise talks with Taliban
In his three combat tours in Afghanistan, Gen. Mark Milley saw the Taliban as a formidable foe, one unlikely to “fade away in the dust,” as he put it in 2013.
This week, Milley, now chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sat across a negotiating table with leaders of the group that seemed defeated after the U.S. invaded in 2001 but will remain a force even as the U.S. sends troops home.
Milley held an unannounced meeting with Taliban leaders in Doha, Qatar, to discuss military aspects of last February’s U.s.-taliban agreement.
He then flew to Kabul to consult with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Milley said he emphasized to both parties the need to rapidly reduce levels of violence.
“Everything else hinges on that,” he told reporters from The Associated Press and two other news organizations.
Milley believes the United States still has an important national interest in Afghanistan, where al-qaida militants plotted the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
But it’s unclear — probably to him and to the Taliban as well — how
Joe Biden as president will approach the evolving Afghan-taliban peace process.
Milley is in the second year of a four-year term as Joint Chiefs chairman and is likely to be a source of military continuity as the Biden administration settles in.
Biden has not said publicly whether he will continue the drawdown or how he will proceed with the February agreement negotiated by Trump’s peace envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad.
In that agreement, the Taliban agreed to renounce al-qaida and take other steps to enhance peace prospects, while the Trump administration agreed to reduce its troops — reaching a complete U.S. withdrawal by May 2021.
In his talks with the Taliban on Tuesday, Milley urged a reduction in violence across Afghanistan, as senior American officials in Kabul warned that stepped-up Taliban attacks endanger the militant group’s nascent peace negotiations with the Afghan government.