American officials have again met Taliban envoys to discuss ways to revivetalks after Donald Trump killed off a potential deal last month.
Zalmay Khalilzad, Mr Trump’s chief negotiator, met the leader of theTaliban’s representatives, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in Pakistan earlierthis month.
Officials discussed either a prisoner swap or truce with the Taliban as aconfidence-building sign that talks can begin again, the Wall StreetJournal reported.link
The Taliban held a three day truce to mark the religious holiday of Eidul-Fitr in June 2018, but have since refused to repeat the gesture. Theirrefusal to offer a ceasefire as part of talks earlier this year helpedharden the Afghan government against the deal.link
One diplomat briefed on the negotiations told the Telegraph “everyone ispushing” the Taliban for a ceasefire as a confidence-building measure toresume talks.
A truce would give Mr Trump a face-saving way of announcing negotiationswere back onlink,the source said.
Another possibility would be a prisoner swap. Two professors, an Americanand an Australian, who were kidnapped in 2016 while teaching at theAmerican University of Afghanistan in 2016, would be exchanged for seniorTaliban figures including Anas Haqqani, a high-ranking member of theHaqqani network.
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United States and Taliban envoys spent more than a year meeting in Dohadrawing up a draft deal allowing America to withdraw its troops fromAfghanistan in return for Taliban assurances they would not harbourinternational terrorists like al-Qaeda.
The deal was close to signing, when Mr Trump appeared to get cold feet, asopinion against the pact seemed to harden in Washington. Prominent figuresquestioned whether the US had made too many concessions and whether theTaliban could be trusted to keep their end. The Afghan governmentcomplained the prospective deal sold them out.
The country has since voted for a new president in an election where theresult will not be known for several weeks and is likely to be fiercelycontested, The Telegraph has reported.
SOURCE: link-meets-taliban-attempt-revive-afghanistan-talks/
