Top members of the Afghanistan government’s negotiating team say they are optimistic a peace deal can be reached with Taliban, despite a rocky start to the talks and numerous obstacles to an agreement in a nation exhausted by four decades of conflict.
The landmark signing of a U.S.-Taliban tentative deal in February, which triggered the start of a phased U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, was supposed to be followed quickly by power-sharing talks between the militant Islamist movement and the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.
But a proposed prisoner swap to build goodwill has gone much more slowly that the Trump administration hoped, and the internally divided government of President Ashraf Ghani has sent mixed signals about its willingness to proceed. Taliban attacks on government forces have also resumed after a brief lull, casting another pall over direct talks.
But Masoom Stanekzai, Afghanistan’s former top national security official who now leads the Ghani government’s negotiating team, said in a rare session with U.S. reporters Wednesday that his delegation was putting the interests of Afghanistan’s war-weary population first and that failing to reach an agreement with the Taliban is not an option.
The teleconference was organized by the U.S. Institute for Peace.
“I think we are going with a good will — the good will that Afghanistan needs peace,” Mr. Stanekzai said. “Every person in Afghanistan in the region wants Afghanistan to end this war.”
Kabul, which has complained of being left out of U.S.-Taliban talks, is prepared to make concessions, Mr. Stanekzai added, but only if the Taliban prove flexible as well.
“Whether today or tomorrow, we must [reach a deal],” he said, “and for that reason, I urge the Taliban that they have to [reconsider] those symbolic excuses, conditions and preconditions, and we have to accept face to face what we can do … to end this war,” he said.
The coronavirus pandemic is just one more complication in the tangled quest to end a nearly 20-year civil war. But the Ghani government’s ability, despite a vicious power struggle in Kabul, to put forward the 21-member negotiating team last month was considered a small victory for diplomacy.
Habiba Sarabi, one of five women on the Kabul negotiating team, said Afghanistan must move forward for the sake of its beleaguered citizens.
Ms. Sarabi said she has lived through decades of conflict in her homeland, along with the struggle for women’s rights, government instability, and an economic and political weakness that has invited outside powers to meddle in her country’s affairs.
“We don’t have any other choice for fighting,” Ms. Sarabi said. “Enough is enough. … We have to go to sit together at the same table to talk about the issues that we have.”
In another small sign of progress, the Ghani government announced the release of 71 more Taliban prisoners Wednesday, another step toward the pledge to release 5,000 some Taliban fighters captured in the fighting in the coming months.
U.S. analysts said hard questions lie ahead for both sides in the talks. President Trump is banking on a successful deal to allow all U.S. combat forces in Afghanistan, which will be coming down from nearly 13,000 to about 8,000 in the days ahead, to leave the country.
“This war has been going on for an enormously long time … and this creates an incredible burden on the shoulder of all parties coming to the table,” Alex Thier, a senior advisor at Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Wednesday during a teleconference.
“They all feel that they have legitimate grievances, so they face an incredible dilemma which is that they can’t keep fighting, but they also can’t give up on what they’ve been fighting for.”
The Taliban, through the peace accord, promised to release 1,000 Afghan troops and civilians, yet both sides have expressed disappointment in the quantity of prisoners released thus far.
Delegation members said they were unsure when formal negotiations will start, and analysts predict the two largest issues up for discussion will be the logistics of a nationwide cease-fire and the make-up of an interim government.
Agreeing to a cease-fire would be “very, very big compromise for the Taliban to be making,” said Mr. Thier. The Reuters news agency reported that “dozens” of Afghan troops and Taliban fighters were reported killed in clashes around the country on Wednesday alone.
The White House said Wednesday President Trump had discussed the state of the Afghan peace process with Qatari leader Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, with the two leaders saying the Taliban must do more to reduce violence in the country.
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