In Afghan Peace Talks, the Taliban Gain Legitimacy While Pursuing War

DOHA, Qatar—Taliban representatives and Afghan federal government delegates meet up with each individual couple times at a beachfront Ritz-Carlton vacation resort and spa here, the unhurried rate of their peace talks sharply contrasting with the raging war again residence.

In the latest weeks, the insurgents have seized just about a 3rd of Afghanistan’s rural districts and besieged quite a few provincial capitals, using advantage of the withdrawal of American forces that is nearing completion.

The Doha negotiations, released last September, were being meant to find a tranquil settlement to the 4-decades long Afghan war. Now, they risk starting to be a mechanism through which the Taliban could legitimize their the latest army victories, attaining worldwide approval for an eventual takeover, Afghan federal government representatives alert.

“The delays that we see from the other side in the progress of talks are not corresponding to the sense of urgency that we have. The violence demands to close, the war demands to close, and we need to access a political settlement,” reported senior federal government negotiator Nader Nadery, who heads Afghanistan’s civil assistance commission. “Are they hoping to take more than militarily, and then to give it some kind of protect, to say ‘Oh, we are talking in Doha?’ We are knowledgeable of these traps.”

The Taliban agreed to sit down for negotiations with representatives of President Ashraf Ghani’s federal government and other big political forces in Kabul as part of the February 2020 deal in between the insurgent team and the Trump administration to pull out all American forces from the region.