{"id":12510,"date":"2019-06-17T08:51:51","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T08:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/en.zalaand.af\/?p=322"},"modified":"2019-06-17T08:51:51","modified_gmt":"2019-06-17T08:51:51","slug":"taliban-us-set-to-hold-crucial-round-of-afghan-peace-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/?p=12510","title":{"rendered":"Taliban, US set to hold crucial round of Afghan peace talks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

The United States and the Taliban are scheduled to hold crucial negotiations in Qatar early next week amid high expectations of a breakthrough in a nearly yearlong effort to end the war in Afghanistan, VOA reported on Sunday.
\nThis would be the seventh round of talks in Doha, Qatar, where the insurgent group maintains an informal political office. The US team is being led by Afghan-born American reconciliation envoy\u00a0Zalmay\u00a0Khalilzad.
\nThe dialogue, which excludes the Afghan government, has focused on the withdrawal of American forces from the country in exchange for Taliban assurances that transnational terrorists would be not be allowed to use Afghan soil for attacks against other countries.
\nUS and Taliban negotiators were expected to conclude an agreement covering the two issues in their last meeting in May, but the discussions stalled over the Taliban\u2019s refusal to cease hostilities and participate in an intra-Afghan peace dialogue until Washington announced a troop drawdown timetable.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A Taliban spokesman has dismissed reported assertions of a stalemate in the dialogue in the wake of US insistence\u00a0that the final agreement must cover a cease-fire and the insurgent group\u2019s engagement in intra-Afghan talks, involving the Kabul government.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t see the dialogue is deadlocked. It is progressing, but steadily or gradually,\u201d Suhail\u00a0Shaheen, who speaks for the insurgent negotiating team, told VOA ahead of the upcoming talks.
\n\u201cI hope with the announcement of a timetable for withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan, the process may gain momentum, paving the way for the Afghans to sit together and chart a road map for a future Islamic system and government,\u201d\u00a0Shaheen\u00a0said.
\nKhalilzad, in a statement ahead of the upcoming meeting with the Taliban, also vowed he would \u201ctry to bring the first two parts of our peace framework to closure,\u201d but he emphasized success would require other parties to show flexibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope Khalilzad will deliver what he has promised \u2014 that he would try to bring to closure the framework for peace on these two issues,\u201d\u00a0Shaheen\u00a0said when asked to respond to comments by the chief American negotiator.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Official sources in Kabul, meanwhile, have told VOA a two-day peace dialogue among Afghans, including government and Taliban representatives, is being arranged in Doha early next month. The sources said the meeting was scheduled for July 7 and would be an outcome of the upcoming US-Taliban negotiations.<\/p>\n

The Taliban are opposed to any direct talks with Afghan government officials, dismissing them as American \u201cpuppets.\u201d But the insurgent group, Taliban officials said, is not averse to a peace dialogue with a delegation representing all sections of the Afghan society, including government officials in their individual capacity.<\/p>\n

While Washington has engaged in direct talks with the Taliban, a top American military commander noted this week that strongholds of the Islamic State group in eastern Afghan provinces \u201care very worrisome to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of US Central Command, said earlier this week that IS was\u00a0under strong military pressure in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

American forces and their Afghan partners routinely attack IS bases in the country while Taliban insurgents also regularly clash with loyalists of the Middle Eastern-based terrorist group.<\/p>\n

\u201cISIS in Afghanistan certainly\u00a0has aspirations\u00a0to attack the United States. \u2026 It is our clear judgment that as long as we maintain pressure on them, it will be hard for them to do that,\u201d McKenzie, using an acronym for Islamic State, told reporters in Germany.<\/p>\n

But the Taliban swiftly rejected McKenzie\u2019s assertions as baseless and alleged they were aimed at justifying the US military presence in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir occupation is practically providing Daesh a ground in Afghanistan, and they are using its name and existence as an instrument,\u201d alleged Taliban spokesman\u00a0Zabihullah\u00a0Mujahid, using the local name for IS.<\/p>\n

Mujahid claimed the Taliban had cleared many Afghan areas of IS, and he accused American forces as well as their local partners of launching aerial strikes against Taliban positions in areas where the insurgents are battling IS militants.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf American generals really fear from Daesh, then why are they avoiding its elimination and creating hurdles against mujahedeen operations? Statements of American generals are opposite of their actions,\u201d Mujahid said.<\/p>\n

American military officials, for their part, have reportedly insisted the Taliban have not done enough to fight IS, particularly in the eastern Afghan provinces of Nangarhar and\u00a0Kunar, where the terrorist group has set up bases.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut not only are the Taliban mostly avoiding fighting the Islamic State, they are also feeding its ranks. Taliban insurgents serve as one of the Islamic State\u2019s primary recruiting pools, and they often bring a wealth of combat experience with them, according to the officials,\u201d the US military officials toldThe New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n

US interlocutors in continuing direct talks with Taliban envoys in Qatar have proposed to leave behind a counterterrorism force in Afghanistan after any peace agreement to fight IS.<\/p>\n

Taliban negotiators, however, have rejected the proposal, insisting their fighters could handle and defeat the Islamic State loyalists, according theTimes<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United States and the Taliban are scheduled to hold crucial negotiations in Qatar early next week amid high expectations of a breakthrough in a nearly yearlong effort to end the war in Afghanistan, VOA reported on Sunday. This would be the seventh round of talks in Doha, Qatar, where the insurgent group maintains an …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":325,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2781],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afghanistan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ehsasnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/m-ss1.jpg?fit=426%2C426&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbbJo6-3fM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}