The US envoy negotiating with the Taliban will hold new talks this month with the insurgents in Qatar, the State Department said Saturday, as momentum builds for a deal to end America’s longest war.
Zalmay Khalilzad, a veteran US policymaker who is leadingPresident Donald Trump’s push to broker a peace deal with the Taliban, leftFriday on a 17-day trip that will also take him to Afghanistan, Pakistan,Germany, Belgium and the United Arab Emirates, the State Department said.
In Doha, he will resume talks with the Taliban after a breakof around a month “to move the peace process forward,” the StateDepartment said in a statement.
Khalilzad has already met six times with the Taliban inrecent months as he looks to seal a deal under which the United States willpull out troops who were first deployed following the September 11, 2001attacks.
The United States and the Taliban are believed to havelargely agreed on the key demand of Washington from 2001 and again now — thatthe Taliban not allow Afghanistan to be used by violent extremists.
But a major sticking point remains the refusal of theTaliban to negotiate with President Ashraf Ghani’s government, which enjoysinternational support.
The Taliban, believing they have leverage on the militaryfront, have also rejected Ghani’s overtures for a nationwide ceasefire.
“No one should expect us to pour cold water on theheated battlefronts of jihad or forget our 40-year sacrifices before reachingour objectives,” Taliban chief Haibatullah Akhundzada said in a raremessage released Saturday.
In Kabul, Khalilzad will meet representatives of civilsociety and women’s rights groups, which have been especially concerned about alarger role for the Taliban.
Khalilzad will “encourage all parties to work towardsintra-Afghan negotiations that lead to a final peace settlement,” theState Department said.
Germany, another of Khalilzad’s stops, has voicedwillingness to hold a meeting on peace in Afghanistan.He will start his trip in Pakistan, the chiefbacker of the Taliban before September 11, which has used its contacts tofacilitate the talks with the Taliban.