Tehran, Sept 8, IRNA – An official of Iranian Foreign Ministry told IRNAthat the US claims that the agreement with Taliban will lessen violence andpave the way for Afghan-Afghan negotiations, while the agreement is notaccepted by the people of the country.
The talks between Taliban and the US have been going on for months withZalmay Khalilzad playing the main role. While many news outlets weretalking about an agreement between the two, the US president sent a tweeton Saturday to announce that he had cancelled the secret meeting that wasto take place in Camp David.
Trump said that “in order to build false leverage,” the Taliban hadadmitted to a suicide car bomb attack that had killed an American soldierand 11 others in Kabul.
“I immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations,” hewrote.
Trump wrote that “unbeknownst to almost everyone”, Taliban leaders and theAfghan President Ashraf Ghani were headed to Washington on Saturday to meetTrump separately in Maryland.
“If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peacetalks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don’thave the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway,” Trump added.
Of course, this halt may be just a temporary one because Trump spares nochance to gain even the slightest success in foreign policy, especiallybecause his foreign policy record is teeming with failures.
Regarding the recent developments between the Taliban and the US, theprevious head of the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s Afghanistan HeadquartersMohsen Pak-Ayin told IRNA that Zalmay Khalilzad, the Special Representativefor Afghanistan Reconciliation, claims that the US and the Taliban havereached an agreement on the principles, which should be confirmed by Trumpto be implemented.
Pak-Ayin said that Khalilzad’s remarks imply that the agreement is notbetween the US and the Taliban, as a group, but it is actually between theUS and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, which was established inSeptember 1996 when Kabul fell to Taliban and ceased to exist when theNorthern Alliance invaded the country in late 2001.
He added that this means that the US has ignored the fact that Afghanistanhas a government and a constitution and made an agreement with the SalafiWahabbis whose ideology is based on terrorism.
The fact is that Trump is empty-handed in foreign policy and he is tryingto declare the end of the US presence in Afghanistan to make an achievementon the verge of the US presidential elections.
The government of Afghanistan that calls itself the national reconciliationgovernment is not a strong one. The president and some other officials havedisagreements on some issues; though, for the purpose of the elections, thegovernment is not against the US-Taliban talks, but it wants to play a rolein the talks as well, he said.
But as it turns out, the US and the Taliban are circumventing the centralgovernment, he added.
Regarding the terror attacks that took place just during the talks, he saidthat this shows that there might be some disagreements inside Taliban. Theattacks maybe because they want to either disrupt the talks or make the USfinalize the deal.
Regarding the NATO and the US’ forces leaving the country, he said thatfrom 14,000 US soldiers about 5,400 will leave Afghanistan. Three bases inBagram and Qandahar will be kept active.
He said that this will not help the peace in Afghanistan because the USforces are the source of instability and war in Afghanistan.
If the agreement does nothing for other tribes and Jihadi groups and justmeets the Taliban’s interests, it will make other tribes to take their gunsin hand, so the civil war will rev up, he said.
Pak-Ayin said that Iran is against favoring Taliban in the talks. Iran isalways encouraged by Afghan-Afghan talks and strengthening the centralgovernment of the country.
Regarding the question if it is possible that Washington wants to use theTaliban against Iran, he said that the US is an enemy of Iran and may useany chance to disrupt Iran’s national security.