A series of significant victories by Taliban forces should not obscure the value of the peace talks between the militant group and the embattled Afghan government, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s team.
“This diplomacy has been ongoing for less than a year,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters. “A year ago … the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban were not speaking to one another. They were not sitting in the same room. That has changed.”
Taliban leaders agreed to begin those meetings and halt attacks on U.S. forces last year in exchange for the withdrawal of American troops. That U.S.-Taliban agreement was a source of discord with the Kabul government, which resented being excluded from those talks. The subsequent ceasefire between the United States and the Taliban enabled the militant group to attack Afghan forces largely without retaliation from American troops.
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“We stop[ped] actively targeting the Taliban in Afghanistan during the — what I would call, again — the capitulation negotiations,” said retired Army Gen. H.R. McMaster, who worked as then-President Donald Trump’s second White House national security adviser, during a Wilson Center event Thursday. “And then, once that capitulation agreement was signed, we were hands-off with the Taliban … Meanwhile, the Taliban were marshaling for this offensive.”
Taliban forces have seized 10 provincial city centers in recent days, raising the possibility the militant group will overthrow the central government. That surge prompted U.S. and British officials to announce Thursday they would redeploy troops to Afghanistan — but not fight the Taliban.
“These incoming forces, these incoming assets, will be based at the airport for one reason, and for one reason only, and that is to help affect the reduction in our civilian footprints,” Price said. “They will not be relocated there for any other reason.”
The loss of the cities has continued even as Taliban and Afghan officials meet in Qatar for dialogues that were touted as a way “to seek a possible common ground” between the two sides. Yet, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, whose government has long maintained ties with the Taliban, told journalists the Taliban have an ultimatum for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
“The condition is that as long as Ashraf Ghani is there, [the Taliban] are not going to talk to the Afghan government,” Khan said Wednesday.
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Price acknowledged the negotiating process is a difficult one.
“We are not trying to sugarcoat this,” he said before touting the meetings. “Both sides have … presented their ideas going forward. Now, I want to be very clear: There’s daylight between the presentations that have taken place … We intend to move forward with that process to continue at it, to continue to support these intra-Afghan talks in the hopes — and ultimately something we will do all we can to support — that this ends up in an Afghan-owned, Afghan-led political solution.”
