A top U.S. diplomat is heading to Kabul just days after a senior official in the government of Afghanistan accused him of trying to negotiate with the Taliban to advance his own political career in the country.
Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad will travel to Afghanistan as part of a seven-country swing through Europe and the Middle East between March 25 and April 10, the State Department announced Tuesday.
Khalilzad is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s top lieutenant for negotiations to end the Afghanistan War and the point man for recent negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban. He is set to consult with Afghan leaders on how talks between the U.S. and the Taliban are going, encourage efforts to form a negotiating team, and discuss next steps for discussions and negotiations within the country.
His latest trip is a long-awaited visit for officials in Kabul, who have been frustrated at a lack of communication with Khalilzad even as the envoy touted a key breakthrough in talks with the Taliban. One senior Afghan official suggested publicly that the diplomat, who was born in Afghanistan and raised in Kabul, is using the talks to set the table for his own ambitions.
“He has wanted to run for president twice, in 2009 and 2014,” Hamdullah Mohib, the national security adviser to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, said in a March 14 briefing with Washington reporters. “Perhaps all of this talk is to create a caretaker government, of which he will then become the viceroy. We’re only saying this because this is the perception.”
That accusation provoked a private tongue-lashing from Pompeo’s team, which reportedly told the Afghan government that the U.S. would have no further dealings with Mohib. U.S. officials reportedly enforced that policy on Monday, as they “left a meeting of NATO ambassadors at the Presidential Palace” when they realized that Mohib was in the room, according to a local Afghan media account.
“The Special Representative will meet with the Allies and partners regarding the status of peace talks and to coordinate sustained commitment by the international community to peace and development in Afghanistan,” State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said in a statement.
