The Trump White House is entertaining the possibility of officially backing Afghan-led peace talks with the Taliban, as a way to bring the longest war in American history to a close.
Mr. Trump alluded to Washington’s overt support for negotiations with the Taliban, and their potential political role in a postwar Afghanistan, as part of the administration’s new Afghan strategy unveiled during a prime-time address to the nation Monday night.
“Someday, after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan,” Mr. Trump told the crowd of U.S. service members gathered at Fort Meyer in Arlington, Virginia.
“But nobody knows if or when that will ever happen,” the commander in chief added.
Shortly after the president’s speech, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the administration was fully prepared to support Taliban peace talks, but warned that Washington would only do so “without preconditions.”
“We stand ready to support peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban without preconditions,” Mr. Tillerson said in a statement Monday night. “We look to the international community, particularly Afghanistan’s neighbors, to join us in supporting an Afghan peace process.”
Taliban leaders have been steadfast on a series of preconditions for peace talks, which include international recognition of its political office in Qatar and removal of the group from the United Nations’ terror list. Those demands have stymied efforts by Kabul to bring the terror group to the negotiating table.
Washington has historically been wary over efforts by Kabul and Islamabad to initiate peace talks with the Taliban, never officially backing efforts to bring the terror group to the negotiation table. However, some analysts viewed the refusal by Obama White House to place the Taliban on the State Department’s official list of foreign terror groups as a way to leave the door open for any potential negotiations.
Afghanistan and Pakistan had agreed to hold peace talks with the Taliban in 2013, coinciding with the Taliban’s unprecedented move to open the political office in Doha that year.
At the time, officials in the Obama administration saw the potential talks as a vehicle to help accelerate the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country by 2014. But Pakistan’s decision to withdraw from the talks eventually scuttled any effort to reach a deal with the terror group.
But Mr. Trump’s decision to abandon a timeline-based approach for ending the Afghan war, which is entering its 16th year, in favor of a conditions-based strategy could give Kabul the political breathing room it needs to “come to terms with this insurgency” and restart talks, a former three-star general told The Washington Times.
The Afghan military, with U.S. and NATO support, can beat back to the Taliban and regain control over 80 to 90 percent of the country, retired Lt. Gen Thomas Spoehr said Tuesday. Currently the Afghan central government only holds sway over roughly half of Afghanistan.
“Peace talks are not essential,” Mr. Spoehr, who is now a senior national security analyst at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation. “But if [Kabul] does not come to a political agreement with the Taliban, they will never control 100 percent of Afghanistan, 100 percent of the time.”
A negotiated resolution, that includes the Taliban, to end the Afghan war is the “optimal solution [and] … only the Taliban and government of Afghanistan can make that happen,” he said.
• Carlo Muñoz can be reached at cmunoz@washingtontimes.com.
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