Taliban say latest talks with US now ‘critical’

ISLAMABAD » The seventh and latest round of peace talks between the U.S. and Taliban is “critical,” Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said Sunday, the second day of talks with Washington’s peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in the Mideastern state of Qatar, where the militant group maintains a political office.

Shaheen said both sides are looking for “tangible results” as they try to hammer out the fine print of agreements that will see the eventual withdrawal of over 20,000 U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan, and end America’s longestrunning war.

The agreements are also expected to provide guarantees that Afghanistan will not again harbor terrorists to carry out attacks worldwide.

The talks began on Saturday and are expected to continue into the next week.

The two sides sat down to negotiate just days after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington was hopeful of a deal to end Afghanistan’s protracted war by Sept. 1.

“Getting a comprehensive peace agreement with the Taliban before Sept. 1 would be nothing short of a miracle,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the U.S.-based Wilson’s Center.

“That said, I could certainly envision a more limited deal being in place by Sept. 1 on a U.S. troop withdrawal, given that there’s already been ample progress on this issue.”

Pompeo and Khalilzad have both said the final accord will include not only agreements with the Taliban on troop withdrawal and guarantees of a nonthreatening Afghanistan, but also agreement on intra-Afghan dialogue and a permanent cease fire.

Until now the Taliban have refused direct talks with the Afghan government while holding two separate meetings with a wide array of prominent Afghans from Kabul, including former president Hamid Karzai, members of the former northern alliance that fought the Taliban during its five-year rule as well as members of the government.

The Taliban have said they will meet government officials but as ordinary Afghans, labeling President Ashraf Ghani’s government a U.S. puppet and noting that the U.S. is the final arbiter on their central issue, which is troop withdrawal.