U.S., Pakistani officials in strained talks over Afghanistan

ISLAMABAD » U.S. and Pakistani officials held difficult talks on Friday in Pakistan’s capital amid a worsening relationship between Washington and Islamabad as each searches for a way forward in a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

The meeting between Washington’s deputy secretary of state and Pakistan’s leaders came amid an array of unsettled issues. They include questions such as the level of future engagement with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the ongoing evacuation of foreign nationals and Afghans who want to flee the country’s new Taliban rulers.

Another question on the agenda is who will provide funds to stave off a full economic meltdown and looming humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. Since the Taliban takeover, billions of dollars in aid have been frozen. Nearly 80% of the former Afghan government’s budget was funded by international donors.

Even as it shies away from any unilateral formal recognition, Pakistan has been pressing for greater engagement with the all-male, allTaliban Cabinet that the insurgents set up after they overran Afghanistan in midAugust, in the final weeks of the U.S. and NATO pullout from the country.

Pakistan has also urged Washington to release billions of dollars to the Taliban so that they can pay salaries of the many Afghan ministries and avoid an economic meltdown. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has warned that s such a crash could unleash a mass migration.

Washington, which spent almost two full years negotiating peace with the Taliban, is still smarting from its dramatic exit from Afghanistan, after 20 years of war. Images of desperate Afghan men, running alongside a departing American C-17, some falling to their death from the wheel well, have come to represent the mayhem of the U.S. withdrawal.

Still, the United States is quietly talking to some Taliban leaders and current Taliban Cabinet ministers to secure the evacuation of American nationals remaining in Afghanistan and others. At home, Republican senators are pressing for legislation that would sanction Afghanistan’s new rulers.