Blinken move to ‘accelerate’ Taliban peace talks upsets Afghan officials

Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s team is attempting to “accelerate” negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan central government, but Afghan officials regard the latest effort as a proposal for “coerced” peace that leaves them vulnerable.

“It is true that collectively — the collective ‘We,’ the United States included — we’re considering a number of different ideas to, again, accelerate that process,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said. “But at the same time, everything, every idea, we have put on the table, every proposal that is out there, certainly any proposal that we would endorse, we understand that this process, at its core, must be Afghan-led and Afghan-owned.”