Secretary of State Mike Pompeo marked the 19th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by traveling to oversee the long-awaited launch of intra-Afghan peace negotiations, as part of a Taliban deal that U.S. officials hope will permit the full withdrawal of American troops.
“There are no guarantees in Afghanistan. I think after 19 years this is what we can see,” Pompeo said on his way to Qatar, where the Taliban and representatives of the U.S.-backed government are expected to meet on Saturday. “I think the Taliban has every incentive to get this right.“
The talks mark a historic step in the peace agreement inked in February, as Taliban leaders previously have refused to recognize the U.S.-backed Afghan government as a legitimate negotiating partner. The meeting was originally scheduled to take place in March but postponed due to controversies over a prisoner exchange process and a political dispute within the Afghan government.
“These negotiations are an important achievement, but … there will be significant challenges on the way to reaching agreement,” State Department special representative Zalmay Khalilzad, the lead American negotiator for the Taliban deal, said Friday. “This is a test for both sides — for the Taliban and for the government: Can they reach an agreement with, despite differences in terms of their visions for the future of Afghanistan? We are prepared to assist if assistance is needed, but this is a new space in diplomacy for peace in Afghanistan.”
Afghan negotiators struck an optimistic note as they prepared to meet the Taliban, with one member of the delegation telling local media that their meetings could help “to build an Afghanistan in which guns are silent, the republic values are strengthened, and Afghans achieve the development they deserve.” Yet the meeting was also haunted by terrorism, including the attempted assassination this week of Afghan vice president Amrullah Saleh in a bombing that reportedly killed 10 people.
Khalilzad, who downplayed the possibility that the attack was carried out by militants working on behalf of the Taliban, emphasized that the United States would not play the role of “mediator” in the “Afghan-owned and Afghan-led” talks.
“We are right now in phase two [of the withdrawal],” Khalilzad said, recalling that the phase one reduction lowered the number of American troops in the country to 8,600. “Phase two will get us to around 4.500 by the kind of mid-October to November time frame, and we are in that phase.”
The U.S.-Taliban deal signed in February outlined a plan for all American troops to exit the country “within 14 months.” That process was conditioned on the Taliban’s renunciation of terrorism and the initiation of the peace negotiations, but the agreement does not require the intra-Afghan talks to succeed before American forces depart.
“Our commitment to reduce our forces to zero is conditioned on them executing their obligations under the agreement,” Pompeo said. “So we’re very clear about their responsibilities with respect to terrorist activity taking place in Afghanistan that is plotting against external — an external — plotting external operations. It’s very clear that the violence levels have to come down to acceptable levels.”
