LONDON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday downplayed the notion that the Afghan government is not being included in U.S.-led peace talks with the Taliban, despite reports that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is frustrated about being left out of the direct dialogue between the Islamist insurgent group and American officials.
In an interview with The Washington Times, Mr. Pompeo said it is “just false” to portray Mr. Ghani as being left on the sidelines, even though the Taliban has refused to negotiate directly with him or his government. U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan John R. Bass “talks to President Ghani multiple times per day on average,” Mr. Pompeo said in London, where he has joined President Trump for a state visit.
The secretary of state added that Amb. Bass is “working jointly” with Zalmay Khalilzad, the veteran U.S. envoy who is leading the Taliban talks. Those talks, seeking an end to America’s longest military combat mission in history, have focused on the pursuit of guarantees the insurgents won’t harbor terrorists once U.S. forces leave Afghanistan, as well as timetable for the possible withdrawal of some 14,000 U.S. troops.
The U.S.-Taliban talks — on pause since an early-May session at which little progress was reported — are slated to resume again in Qatar in the coming days.
“There’s progress that’s been made,” Mr. Pompeo told The Times, “but as with anything that’s been going on this long … there’s a reason it went on this long,” noting U.S. forces have been in Afghanistan for more than 17 years.
His comments come amid searing friction between the Ghani government and the Taliban, which has continued to launch military strikes as the diplomacy has proceeded. The Taliban sent a delegation to Moscow in late May for talks with a delegation of regional Afghan politicians who’d also flown into the Russian capital. According to Reuters, the delegation included Afghan political figures who could challenge Mr. Ghani in the presidential election later this year.
While Mr. Ghani is reported to have sharply criticized the meeting, his government has also expressed concern about the prospect of being left out of the direct U.S.-Taliban talks that began last July.
In January, the Afghan president publicly lamented his administration was not being informed about the talks. “There’s discussion, but this discussion needs to be shared back,” his office said in a statement, according to the Voice of America. Mr. Ghani said Mr. Khalilzad should be focused on bringing the Taliban into direct talks with the elected, internationally recognized government in Kabul.
The Afghan president’s national security adviser, Hamdullah Mohib, in March criticized Mr. Khalilzad again, saying the U.S. envoy was “delegitimizing” the Kabul government by excluding it from the talks and acting like a “viceroy.” The remarks so angered Trump administration officials that they subsequently refused to deal with the adviser.
Mr. Pompeo in the interview Tuesday asserted that U.S. officials, including American military officials, are working very closely with the Ghani government, and said any peace deal is “going to be an inter-Afghan solution.”
“In the end,” the secretary of state said, “the Afghan people are going to have to demand a reduction in violence — Afghan people, not only the government, not only the Taliban, but others all across Afghanistan are going to have to decide, ’Enough, we’re going to restore our nation, we’re going to go move to a place where we’re not a pariah country any more, where we don’t have armed conflict running throughout or a security situation prevents significant amounts of foreign direct investment.’”
“Our process is aimed at helping them achieve that while protecting American interests at the same time,” Mr. Pompeo said.
“President Trump has been unambiguous,” he said. “Nobody has to guess about how he wants to bring our troops back and reduce the risk to American lives and the cost connected to our presence in Afghanistan. The mission set that Ambassador Khalilzad has been given, along with all of us inside the [U.S. government] is to deliver an outcome where we get our folks home … we protect America by ensuring we have the capacity to reduce the risk that terrorism springs from Afghanistan.”
“That’s what [Mr. Khalilzad] is working on,” Mr. Pompeo said.
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.