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Afghan Taliban Open First Office In Doha As U.S. Plans Talks

June 18, 2013

by RFE/RL

U.S. officials say they will sit down with the Taliban "within days" to begin the "first step on a long road" toward ending the 12-year-old war in Afghanistan.

The announcement came as the Taliban opened their first office on June 18 in Doha and announced its willingness to open peace talks with the Afghan government. Negotiations over the opening of the office lasted more than two years.

The development marks the first significant step in reaching a peace settlement to the armed conflict between Kabul and the insurgent group.

At a ceremony in Kabul earlier to mark the U.S. handover of security control to Afghan forces, President Hamid Karzai said he planned to send a team to Qatar to "discuss peace talks" with Taliban leaders.

In a statement, the Taliban said it wanted good ties with neighboring states and backed a political solution in Afghanistan. Earlier, it denounced the use of Afghan soil for "threats to other countries."

U.S. officials called that statement "a first step in distancing the movement from international terrorism" but said they expected the Taliban to eventually sever all ties with Al-Qaeda.

Low Expectations

In a background briefing call for reporters, a senior administration official said the United States did not expect quick progress in talks between the two sides.

"The core of this process is not going to be the U.S.-Taliban talks -- those can help advance the process, but the core of it is going to be negotiations among Afghans, and the level of trust on both sides is extremely low, as one would expect," the official said.

"So it's going to be a long, hard process if indeed it advances significantly at all."

The official added that Pakistan "has been particularly helpful in urging the other side -- that is, the Taliban -- to come forward and join in a peace process."

U.S. officials said their first meeting with Taliban leaders would not involve substantive issues but would be an exchange of agendas. "We'll tell them what we want to talk about; they'll tell us what they want to talk about," one official said.

They said they expected the subject of detainee exchanges to be on the U.S.-Taliban agenda, and cited the case of Sergeant Bowe Robert Bergdahl, a U.S. Army soldier who was taken prisoner by the Taliban-aligned Haqqani network in 2009.

In Qatar, a Taliban official said no date had been set for peace talks with government representatives from Kabul.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, and "The New York Times"

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/afghanistan-us-taliban-talks/25020991.html

Copyright (c) 2013. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.