The fifth round of peace talks between the United States and the Taliban representatives in Doha, Qatar is entering day 13 today, but the details of the negotiations remained within the team.
This comes after the talks gave a heads-up on US troops withdrawal as to both sides came up to some lever of agreement on the modality of foreign forces pullout from Afghanistan.
Both sides have reached agreement on some issues, said sources close to Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special envoy who leads the roundtable in Doha. The details of the agreement, however, is not leaked to media on which type of concurrence is agreed upon.
“Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” said Khalilzad last month.
Meanwhile, a political analyst Bilal Niazi, who is familiar with the talks, said that a comprehensive ceasefire will be announced later this month in the New Year eve.
“There are rumors that a permanent ceasefire will be announced in the new solar year under an agreement between the Afghan government, the US and the Taliban,” said Niazi. “We will start the (next solar) year with a permanent ceasefire.”
According to sources close to the Taliban, one of the issues that makes the ongoing peace negotiations even more complicated is the US troops withdrawal from Afghanistan. Taliban has repeatedly insisted on an immediate pullout of the foreign forces.
In the meantime, some other sources cited that Taliban has doubled duration of the timeline for foreign forces withdrawal. Taliban, however, has not commented on this.
“They have made an agreement on the foreign forces withdrawal,” said Faiz Zaland, a political affairs analyst familiar with US-Taliban talks. “Now they (US and Taliban) are discussing the issue on whether or not the Taliban will be a threat against other nations after the foreign forces’ pullout,” local media quoted.
As talks on Afghan peace process is becoming warmer, from other hand, battling conflicts are on hike between the Afghan forces and the Taliban – mainly in Northern provinces of the country where residents fear some cities might collapse into Taliban’s hand if the Afghan security forces do not act immediately.
“From one hand, we are busy with peace, and from the other hand, they (Taliban) want to damage government’s legitimacy,” said Rahmatullah Nabil, a former head of the National Directorate of Security. “Also, they (Taliban) will cause foreign forces to leave Afghanistan and Pakistan’s pressure will decrease (against them). But Taliban’s war machine will continue,”
Meanwhile, residents express fear and concerns claiming they are put in the dark; they have no idea what will be the outcome of the peace negotiations.
“We should know what is ongoing behind the closed doors and what they are talking about,” said Tania, a Kabul resident, local media quoted.
“The Afghan youth have not been given a role in the peace talks. They should be given a role and they can express their views,” said another resident.
Some sources suggested that Doha talks will continue in the future, entering a possible next round.
Four key issues on counter-terrorism, a permanent ceasefire, foreign forces withdrawal and intra-Afghan talks, however, remained fruitless so far.
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