Afghan peace hopes

KABUL, Afghanistan — The U.S. peace envoy to Afghanistan said Saturday that for the first time he can report “substantive” progress on all four issues key to a peace agreement in the country’s 17-year war, calling the latest round of talks with the Taliban the “most productive” so far.

Zalmay Khalilzad (photo) said talks with the Taliban had been exclusively about troop withdrawal and anti-terrorism guarantees. But on Saturday, he said the discussions have broadened to include a timeline for both intraAfghan negotiations as well as a cease-fire. He declined to give details, however. The talks are scheduled to resume Tuesday.

Khalilzad said it will ultimately be up to Afghans to decide among themselves the agenda for negotiations as well as the terms of a cease-fire.

So far, the Taliban have refused to talk directly with the current Afghan government, considering it a U.S. puppet. The insurgents, however, have consistently said they will sit down with any Afghan, even a government official, but as an ordinary citizen and not as a government representative. The Taliban currently control nearly half of Afghanistan, and are more powerful than at any time since the October 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

More than 2,400 U.S. service personnel have died in Afghanistan since the coalition invaded to oust the Taliban and hunt down Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

In a press briefing in Doha, where he has been meeting the Taliban, Khalilzad said he hoped that all-Afghan talks that begin Sunday — also in Doha — will be a precursor to negotiations to hammer out the framework for Afghanistan’s post-war future — what he called the “actual give and take about the future of the country, the political roadmap that will take place during negotiations.”

He said Washington’s “aspiration” is to have that framework in place by Sept. 1.