As US President Joe Biden took office earlier this week, the Pakistanigovernment urged him to abide by his predecessor’s peace deal with theTaliban that promises an end to the 20-year-long conflict that has killed,directly or indirectly, hundreds of thousands of people.
The newly minted Biden administration has said it will review the priorTrump administration’s peace deal with the Taliban militant group to assesswhether the Taliban is holding to the terms of the February 2020 agreement.
National Security Council spokesperson Emily Horne said on Friday thatduring a phone call between US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan andhis Afghan counterpart, Hamdullah Mohib, Sullivan “made clear the UnitedStates’ intention to review the February 2020 US-Taliban agreement,including to assess whether the Taliban was living up to its commitments tocut ties with terrorist groups, to reduce violence in Afghanistan, and toengage in meaningful negotiations with the Afghan government and otherstakeholders.”
The deal, agreed upon after months of negotiations in Doha, Qatar, wassigned between the US and the Taliban and did not include the US-backedAfghan government in Kabul. It stipulated that if the Taliban ceased itsattacks on US forces and pledged to renounce terrorism, the US wouldsteadily withdraw its roughly 13,000 troops from the country.
The US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 to overthrow the Taliban inretaliation for the group having provided a safe harbor for the al-Qaedaterrorist organization, which had recently killed several thousandAmericans in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. While the Talibanwas ousted, it has remained a powerful force in the countryside, waging aguerilla campaign against US and Afghan government forces ever since.
Last week, the Pentagon announced those troop levels were now at just 2,500and that all remaining US troops are expected to leave the Central Asiancountry by May. However, as the Taliban and Kabul government have yet toreach an accord, military exchanges have continued and the US has performedseveral airstrikes that have hit Taliban positions, prompting outcry fromthe Taliban.
Earlier this month, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told Sputnikthat the group considers the strikes to be in violation of the Dohaagreement and that “if the operation continues in violation and in anintentional manner, of course, we will be forced to react, and this is aprovocative act.”
Negotiations between the Taliban and the Kabul government, which theTaliban regards as a puppet of Washington, began in September but have beenslow-going. Only in December did they reach an accord on how to begin thepeace talks themselves, which began in early January.