WASHINGTON – The Biden administration says it will review last year’sUS-Taliban agreement under which American forces are to leave Afghanistanby May 2021 in exchange for counter-terrorism guarantees.

Pakistan played a key role in facilitating the start of reconciliationtalks between warring Afghan parties that led to the peace agreement.

According to a White House statement, Biden’s newly appointed NationalSecurity Advisor, Jake Sullivan, informed his Afghan counterpart HamdullahMohib about the “United States’ intention to review” the deal in a phonecall on Friday.

Sullivan said that the review would assess “whether the Taliban was livingup to its commitments to cut ties with terrorist groups, to reduce violencein Afghanistan, and to engage in meaningful negotiations with the Afghangovernment and other stakeholders.”

The White House statement said Sullivan underscored that the U.S. willsupport the peace process with “a robust and regional diplomatic effort,”which will aim to help the two sides achieve a durable and just politicalsettlement and permanent ceasefire.

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Mohib, for his part, wrote in a tweet that during the phone call the twosides had “agreed to work toward a permanent ceasefire and a just anddurable peace” in Afghanistan.

The US reached a deal with the Taliban in February last year on thewithdrawal of 12,000 US troops from Afghanistan in exchange for theTaliban’s halting of their attacks on American forces.

Under the deal, the former President Donald Trump’s administration promisedto bring the number of US forces in Afghanistan to zero by May 2021.

Afghan government officials and Taliban representatives are set to resume asecond round of talks in the Qatari capital, Doha.

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On Thursday, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi called on theBiden administration to follow up on the ongoing Afghan peace process andAmerican troops withdrawal from the country.

“I think they [Biden administration] should realize there is an opportunityin Afghanistan and they should persevere with what was initiated and notreverse things,” Qureshi told Qatar’s Al Jazeera television. .

“Push them forward, because, after a long time, we have started moving inthe right direction.”

Qureshi also expressed Pakistan’s readiness to help expedite the peaceprocess between the two sides.

“We are concerned because we feel violence can vitiate the climate,”Qureshi said. “Pakistan has done a lot, we have really bent backwards tocreate an environment to facilitate the peace process.”