Afghanistan Times
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AT News Report
KABUL: The United States peace envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad is in the region as part of his mission over the peace process in Afghanistan. Khalilzad has so far held six rounds of negotiations with Taliban representatives in Qatar to reach an agreement for the end of 18-year war, called the longest war in the US history.
Some political analysts believe that the two parties would achieve key agreements in the seventh round.
The Afghan-born US veteran diplomat is set to visit
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Germany, Belgium, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar
where he would sit in front of Taliban negotiators.
Analysts say that Taliban would agree with Khalilzad over a US withdrawal
schedule and the existence of a number of US military bases in Afghanistan.
Taliban insist total US drawdown from the country and reject any bases.
Political analyst, Ahmad Saeedi said that the US pullout and
a guarantee from Taliban that Afghan soil would not be used again by terrorist
networks to threaten West, would be focused in the seventh round of
negotiations.
He added that “probably” Taliban would agree over the remaining of “some US
military bases” post Washington withdrawal.
The two sides were said to have prepared an agreement draft of the US
withdrawal in the fifth round of talks. It was expected to be finalized in the
sixth round, but it wasn’t done for what the US called Taliban’s
“inflexibility”.
One of the issues was that the US was not ready to accept Taliban’s formal
title ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’, but this time, Saeedi believes that
Khalilzad would agree with this matter.
But another political expert, Rahmatollah Bijanpour says that Khalilzad’s
frequent visits to the region would more complicate the peace process.
He said that US officials were not serious to persuade Taliban for talks with
Afghan government in the previous rounds of talks.
Bijanpour added that previous talks were less focusing on the Afghan peace,
arguing that some secret talks between the US and Taliban would not help the
peace process, but would increase instability and crisis in the war-hit
country.
