US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has demanded ‘clear evidence’ from the Taliban that could lead to a de-escalation of tensions before a peace deal is signed and US troops withdraw.
According to the report of the foreign news agency ‘AP’, Mike Pompeo said in a news conference in Uzbekistan that we are close to an agreement with the Taliban but had come close before but failed because the Taliban failed to show seriousness.
He said that more work remains to be done so that peace talks can be started.
The US Secretary of State said, “We are working on a peace and reconciliation plan that includes correcting the commas and correcting the sentences.”
“We were close to an agreement before, a piece of paper that we jointly drafted and the Taliban could not implement it due to their will or capacity or both to de-escalate,” he said. were’.
Talking about the peace deal with the Taliban, he said that “we are now asking them to show evidence of their intentions and capacity to de-escalate the situation in order to reduce the risks in a de-escalated environment and hold intra-Afghan talks.” .
He said, “We are hopeful that they will be able to achieve everything but we are not yet in a relevant position and there is work to be done”.
Mike Pompeo’s statement regarding the Afghan peace process came two days after the visit of the US representative for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, who said in a meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul that “no progress has been made so far in the negotiations with the female students.” It has not happened’.
Zalmay Khalilzad had said without elaborating that he was hopeful of de-escalating tensions and building consensus with the Taliban.
Zalmay Khalilzad had arrived in Islamabad from Kabul, according to which the US Embassy said that he had come to reduce the attacks on the Taliban and seek Pakistan’s support for the agreement to end the 18-year-long Afghan war. It is the first step towards a peace agreement.
It should be noted that the Taliban had said in a statement before the visit of the American representative that they had given Zalmay Khalilzad an opportunity for a 10-day ceasefire to sign the peace agreement, which would also be continued in the intra-Afghan talks. .
It should be remembered that after the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the United States started a war to eliminate Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, which has been going on for more than 18 years, and thousands of civilians and soldiers have died in this war. .
Negotiations between the two sides to end the ongoing war between the US and the Taliban began in October 2018 and continued for more than a year.
In September last year, US President Donald Trump announced an abrupt end to peace talks with the Taliban after an American soldier was killed in an operation in Afghanistan, while the talks entered the final phase.
Zalmay Khalilzad also tried to negotiate directly between the Taliban and the Afghan government and there was a period after which the Taliban announced that they would not negotiate with Ashraf Ghani’s government as an American puppet.
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– 2024-04-17 09:22:53
