Austin said that by urging the U.S. to end airstrikes against the Taliban, the Doha deal meant the Islamist group «has strengthened, they have intensified their offensive operations against Afghan security forces, and Afghans have lost a lot of people every week.» The United States and the Taliban signed an agreement in February 2020 that called for the opening of peace talks between the two Afghan sides in March. Negotiations have been delayed several times, but in early December, the Taliban and the Afghan government agreed on a set of rules and procedures. This procedural agreement is a modest but important step that could allow both sides to move forward in their quest for a political solution to end the decades-long war. According to the US-Taliban agreement, intra-Afghan negotiations between the Taliban and other «Afghan parties» – the current Afghan government is not explicitly mentioned in the agreement as a concession to the Taliban – are expected to begin on March 10, 2020. However, they were launched on September 12, 2020 in Doha, Qatar. The main reason for this delay was the haggling over the release of Taliban prisoners, which in turn was caused by uncertainty about what had actually been agreed. In addition to setting a withdrawal date, the Doha agreement included sweeping commitments for the Taliban to take steps to prevent groups like al-Qaeda from threatening the security of the United States and its allies. Although the Taliban derive their main wish from this agreement – the withdrawal of US troops – they have remained vague in their commitments to protect civil rights, which they brutally repressed when they were in power. Lord. Esper stressed that if the Taliban violated the promises, «the United States would not hesitate to cancel the deal.» «The agreement between the United States and the Taliban contains a clause stipulating that Afghan soil would not be used against the security of a country.
We made a commitment and nothing like this has happened since,» he said. The gap between what the Taliban and the Afghan government expect [from a peace agreement] and what they are willing to compromise is very wide,» said Afghan researcher Ibraheem Bahiss. This is the Taliban`s demand for an «Islamic system» that, while unspecified, means, on the one hand, a complete, if not complete, change in the current republican state, and on the other hand, the Afghan government`s desire to protect most of the current constitution, which is vilified by the Taliban as a Western copy. Lord. Khalilzad, the veteran diplomat who leads U.S. peace efforts and is himself from Afghanistan, has long insisted that the U.S. is not seeking a withdrawal agreement, but «a peace agreement that allows withdrawal.» Among other things, the February pact also provided for a prisoner exchange, the opening of intra-Afghan negotiations and the lifting of sanctions. The Afghan government was not a party to the February agreement. After more than a year of talks, the deal marks the beginning of the end of America`s longest war.
But many obstacles remain. The so-called Doha agreement was signed in February 2020 and set a date for the withdrawal of troops by the United States. Mehdi J. Hakimi, executive director of the Rule of Law Program and a lecturer at Stanford Law School, provides an overview of the current state of the U.S.-Taliban AGREEMENT and peace negotiations, including the potential for a U.S. government. The military withdrawal in the final weeks of the Trump administration and the challenges for the next Biden administration. «The deal will mean nothing — and today`s good feelings won`t last — unless we take concrete action against the commitments made and the promises made,» Pompeo said. Andar argued that kabul`s importance to the success of the US-Taliban deal has been overlooked, «so this agreement has not been effective in bringing peace, stopping bloodshed and ending the war and the suffering of Afghans.» «I truly believe the Taliban want to do something to show that we are not wasting all our time,» President Trump said in Washington hours after the deal was signed. «When bad things happen, we go back.» The agreement sets a timetable for the final withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, the impoverished Central Asian country once unknown to many Americans and now symbolises endless conflicts, foreign entanglements and an incubator of terrorist conspiracies. Either way, given the short time left, intra-Afghan negotiations are unlikely to produce clear results by the end of April 2021 – the date set in the agreement for a full US withdrawal. But this withdrawal is linked to certain conditions of the agreement that were probably not met.
A year after the U.S.-Taliban deal, Afghan leaders say they are frustrated by the militant group`s continued rise in violence that has affected civilians. However, experts point out that the agreement between THE ADMINISTRATION OF US President Donald J. Trump and Taliban leaders is only the first step towards a lasting peace. The biggest challenge, they say, will be negotiating an agreement between the Islamic fundamentalist group and the Afghan government on the future of Afghanistan. Many Afghans, exhausted by a war that has killed thousands and forced millions to flee as refugees, fear that a US withdrawal will spark a new conflict and ultimately allow the Taliban to regain control. Retaliation against al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies was the catalyst that led to the US invasion. But it was an emerging sense of futility that was perhaps best demonstrated by the United States` acceptance of relatively small concessions by the Taliban in the deal that led successive governments to find a way out. The agreement, signed on February 29, 2020, calls for the withdrawal of all US states. by May 2021, but only if the Taliban keep their promises to sever relations with terrorist groups and participate in intra-Afghan talks on a permanent ceasefire and political roadmap for Afghanistan. The deal also depends on more difficult negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government over the country`s future. Officials hope that these talks will lead to a power-sharing agreement and a permanent ceasefire, but both ideas have been anathema to the Taliban in the past.
Under the agreement signed on February 29 in Doha, Qatar, the United States committed to a gradual and conditional withdrawal of all U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan within 14 months of signing the agreement. After more than eighteen years of war in Afghanistan, the United States and the Taliban have agreed on the most intensive efforts of both sides to date to end the war. At the heart of the agreement is a significant withdrawal of the United States. Taliban troops and guarantee that the country will not become a safe haven for terrorists. Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem said in a Skype interview with VOA Afghanistan Service that the group had respected the agreement. .