Zalmay Khalilzad warns violence could undermine Afghan talks

The top U.S. negotiator who helped orchestrate the peace deal in Afghanistan warned Monday that “distressingly high” levels of violence in the country could undermine the power-sharing talks just getting underway between the government and the Taliban.

Special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad went public with his concerns amid renewed and rising violence between the U.S.-backed Kabul government and the radical Islamist insurgency. The Taliban launched a wide-scale military campaign in Afghanistan’s Helmand province in recent weeks, while its officials say that U.S.-led counter airstrikes also violate the agreement.

“Continued high levels of violence can threaten the peace process and the agreement and the core understanding that there is no military solution,” Mr. Khalilzad tweeted Monday. “Violence today remains distressingly high in spite of the recent reaffirmation of the need for substantial reduction.”

Despite a recent understanding from the Taliban to cease its attacks if the U.S. halted airstrikes in the region, a suicide car bomb that killed 13 people and injured 120 others in Afghanistan’s Ghor province fueled new skepticism over the unofficial cease-fire. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Mr. Khalilzad, who has led the U.S. delegation in the talks, said violence like what occurred in Ghor has “robbed far too many Afghans of their loved ones.”

“The belief that says violence must escalate to win concessions at the negotiating table is very risky,” he added. “Such an approach can undermine the peace process and repeats past miscalculations by Afghan leaders.”

Mr. Khalilzad said that the surge in violence forced a meeting between the parties in Doha, Qatar, where the Taliban’s headquarters is located, although he did not specify the timing.

Representatives from both the Taliban and the Afghan government conducted their own round of meetings Monday, said Taliban spokesperson Muhammed Naeem.

But he added the two sides are still trying to nail down the process for talks to proceed, with hard questions of substance still to come.

The February peace deal between the U.S. and the Taliban laid the groundwork for the U.S. to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, in exchange for promises that the Taliban would never again allow the country to be a safe haven for terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda.

It also opened the door for intra-Afghan negotiations that began last month in their first face-to-face negotiations, even as their respective military forces clash across the country.

The agreement also called for a phased U.S. drawdown through the middle of next year if the Taliban made good on certain promises. But a recent tweet from President Trump sowed confusion among military and national security leaders as his top adviser said the year-end goal was 2,500 troops, while the Pentagon said it was still operating on the original schedule of an extended, conditional drawdown well into 2021.

There were roughly 12,000 U.S. service members in Afghanistan when the deal was finalized in February. That number was quickly cut to about 8,500, and military officials say it will soon be down to 4,500.

Mr. Trump’s Afghan policy came under attack again from the president’s former national security adviser, John R. Bolton, who told a Washington think tank Monday that it would be a “huge mistake” to withdraw the bulk of U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan next year.

“I think the advantage of keeping a substantial American force — not only for counterterrorism purposes but for other [purposes] in Afghanistan — should be clear by now, although obviously it isn’t,” Mr. Bolton said during an event hosted by the Atlantic Council.

“It’s not that we’re eager to have wars go on forever,” he continued. “We don’t get to decide that alone, however.”

Mr. Bolton, who served as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser until last September, said that if having forces deployed abroad proves to provide better defensive potential, “then it’s in our interest to do it.”