U.S. looks to expand on portions of peace deal

DOHA, QATAR» U.S. diplomats are trying to build on parts of the peace deal made with the Taliban last year, specifically the classified portions that outlined what military actions — on both sides — were supposed to be prohibited under the signed agreement, according to American, Afghan and Taliban officials.

The negotiations, which have been quietly underway for months, have morphed into the Biden administration’s lastditch diplomatic effort to achieve a reduction in violence, which could enable the United States to still exit the country should broader peace talks fail to yield progress in the coming weeks.

If these discussions and the separate talks between the Afghan government and Taliban falter, the United States will likely find itself with thousands of troops in Afghanistan beyond May 1. That is the deadline by which all U.S. military forces are meant to withdraw from the country under the 2020

agreement with the Taliban and would come at a time when the insurgent group likely will have begun its spring offensive against the beleaguered Afghan security forces.

Both of these conditions would almost certainly set back any progress made in the past months toward a political settlement, despite both the Trump and the Biden administrations’ fervent attempts to end the U.S.’ longest-running war.

“Time is really running out for the Biden administration,” said Asfandyar Mir, an analyst at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. “If there is no breakthrough in the next two to three weeks, Biden will have scored his first major foreign policy failure.”

The proposed agreement specific to two annexes of the 2020 deal, which were deemed classified by the Trump administration, is intended to stave off an insurgent victory on the battlefield during the peace talks by limiting Taliban military operations against Afghan forces, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the negotiations.

In return, the United States would push for the release of all Taliban prisoners still imprisoned by the Afghan government and the lifting of United Nations sanctions against the Taliban — two goals outlined in the original deal.

These new negotiations, which exclude representatives from the Afghan government, are being carried out amid a contentious logjam between the Taliban and the Afghans, despite pressure from international and regional actors on both sides to commit to some form of a path forward.

With May 1 just a few weeks away, there is a growing sense of urgency and uncertainty looming over all sides.

The United States currently has around 3,500 troops in the country, alongside thousands of contractors and international forces still on the ground. Withdrawing those forces and all their equipment by May 1 is, at this point, almost logistically impossible, experts and officials said.

The U.S.’ unilateral negotiations with the Taliban have drawn ire from Afghan negotiators, who see the side discussions as a distraction from the broader peace talks. Even if the United States and the Taliban reach a deal to reduce violence, it is not likely to result in a full cease-fire, said one of the Afghan government negotiators, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Specifically, the United States is pushing for three months of reduced violence.

But in recent months, the Taliban submitted their own proposal, first reported by Tolo News, with requests that were not fully accepted by the U.S. negotiators and included severe restrictions on U.S. air power.

The February 2020 deal loosely called for the Taliban to stop suicide attacks and large-scale offensives in exchange for the U.S. forces scaling back drone strikes and raids, among other types of military assaults. But both sides interpreted those terms differently, officials said, and both have accused one another of violating the deal. The Taliban are also supposed to cut ties with al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, but the U.S. intelligence community has seen little movement toward that goal.

Under the current arrangement, U.S. forces can defend their Afghan allies if they are being attacked, but the Taliban said U.S. airstrikes have been carried out against their fighters who were not attacking Afghan forces.

Negotiations between the Afghans and the Taliban, which began in September, have practically come to a halt as the insurgent group has remained reluctant to discuss any future government or power-sharing deal while the United States remains noncommittal about whether it will withdraw from Afghanistan by May 1.