Working on “final details” of peace pact, Taliban political spokesman says

Members of a Taliban delegation, led by chief negotiator Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar (C, front), leave after peace talks with Afghan senior politicians in Moscow, Russia May 30, 2019. (REUTERS)

• US representatives and members of insurgency in ninth round of talks in Qatar to end 18-year-long war
• Taliban spokesman Mujahid says internal issues of Afghanistan not discussed, no intra-Afghan talks until deal final

PESHAWAR/KABUL: The United States and members of the Taliban insurgency are on the cusp of reaching a peace agreement as the two sides met in Doha once again today to flesh out the “final details” of a pact that could end the insurgents’ 18-year-long fight with the US-backed Afghan government, a spokesman for the Taliban said on Tuesday.
US and Taliban officials have been negotiating in Qatar since last year on an agreement centered on the withdrawal of US forces in exchange for a Taliban guarantee that international militant groups will not plot from Afghan soil. US negotiators have been pressing the Taliban to agree to peace talks with the Kabul government and to a ceasefire.
In an audio message sent to Arab News on Tuesday, Suhail Shaheen, the spokesman for the Taliban’s political office, said both sides had come close to an agreement during Monday night’s meeting that ended just after 10:30pm local time.
“Considerable progress has been made,” he said. “We are working on the final details of the agreement. As happens in such meetings, there are some points that need more discussion, hence we are meeting again today [Tuesday] at 10:30AM. Sooner or later there will be an agreement between the two sides.”
“Once everything is finalised, a day will be decided to formally announce the agreement in presence of the world media,” Shaheen said.
US. President Donald Trump is impatient to get US forces out of Afghanistan and end a war that was launched after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. But there are fears among Afghan officials and US national security aides that a US troop withdrawal could see Afghanistan plunged into a new round of civil war that could herald a return of Taliban rule and international militants, including Islamic State, finding a refuge.
On Tuesday, Afghan media cited unnamed sources to report that US and Taliban negotiators had agreed to establish “safe zones” for Taliban fighters once US forces started to exit Afghanistan.
President Ashraf Ghani’s government, sidelined from all nine rounds of talks in Qatar, rejected reports of the creation of “safe zones” for the insurgents.
“We are not of this opinion, that is not our understanding from the talks between the Taliban and Americans,” Sediq Seddiqi, Ghani’s spokesman, told Arab News. “On the contrary, our expectation is that any progress should lead to peace and cessation of war, a ceasefire that brings peace across Afghanistan and direct talks between the Taliban and the government.”
On Sunday, a Taliban leader and the group’s former ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, told Afghan news channel Tolo News that the peace agreement would be signed in a matter of days.
“Mullah Biradar would sign the agreement from the Taliban side,” he said, referring to former Taliban second-in-command Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. “The Americans have asked the Taliban to include in the agreement that the Taliban will cut ties with all terrorist groups in Afghanistan.”
Zaeef also said an inclusive intra-Afghan dialogue might be launched one or two weeks after the US-Taliban agreement.
However, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Arab News that internal issues of Afghanistan were not being discussed in the meetings with US representatives and intra-Afghan talks would start once the terms and conditions of a peace agreement were finalised.
Mujahid said that details of the peace talks would be made public only once a final agreement was reached.