Progress made in Taliban talks: Pentagon
WASHINGTON: US Defence Secretary Mark Esper said on Thursday that the United States and the Taliban had negotiated a proposal for a seven-day reduction in violence.
“We’ve said all along that the best, if not only, solution in Afghanistan is a political agreement. Progress has been made on this front and we’ll have more to report on that soon,” Esper told reporters during a press conference in Brussels.
“It will be a continual evaluative process as we go forward — if we go forward,” Esper added.
President Donald Trump has announced a conditional decision for a peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan, Fox Business Network reported on Wednesday, after sources told Reuters an agreement could be signed this month.
Reuters was not immediately able to verify the Fox Business report.
Meanwhile, a senior Pakistani Taliban commander was killed by a bomb in eastern Afghanistan, militant and intelligence sources told reporters on Thursday, the latest such incident to target the group in recent days.
Sheharyar Mehsud, chief of a militant faction which is part of the umbrella Tehrik-e-taliban Pakistan (TTP, or Pakistani Taliban), was the target of the remote-controlled blast in Kunar province, a TTP commander in Pakistan said.
A Pakistani intelligence official who confirmed the incident said Mehsud had fled to Afghanistan in 2016.
The blast comes nearly two weeks after two other key TTP leaders — Khalid Haqqani and
Qari Saifullah Peshawari — were killed in a clash with security forces. It was not immediately clear who was behind the killings.
They have come as the US and the Afghan Taliban — which is separate from the TTP — appear close to a breakthrough on a deal for an American troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Islamabad has helped to facilitate the talks, which have stretched over more than a year.
Pakistan was one of only three countries to recognise the Afghan Taliban regim.
Pakistan has been battling a homegrown insurgency for over a decade, with thousands of civilians and security personnel dying in extremist attacks, especially after the TTP began their campaign of violence in 2007.
But overall levels of extremist-linked violence have dropped dramatically in recent years, with 2019 seeing the fewest deaths since 2007 — the year the TTP was formed.