This month, the Trump administration reportedly ordered its diplomats to seek direct talks with the Taliban. That news report came just days after General John Nicholson, the head of the nato mission in Afghanistan, said the United States was “ready to talk to the Taliban and discuss the role of international forces.” The militant group maintains that the Afghan government is illegitimate and that it will talk only to the U.S. It also insists on a withdrawal of all U.S. forces from the country as part of any reconciliation process in Afghanistan. The Taliban has not dismissed the reported offer—but noted it was awaiting a formal offer from the U.S. [...]
The reported U.S. offer of direct talks with the Taliban comes on the heels of the Afghan government’s own unprecedented overtures toward the militant group. In February, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani offered the group unconditional talks; and last month, he offered the Taliban an unconditional cease-fire to coincide with the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. If that offer was a surprise, the Taliban’s response to it was a shock: It accepted the offer and ordered its fighters to lay down their weapons for three days. The effectiveness of the truce—as well as the resumption of the fighting after Eid—signaled just how much control the Taliban has over its fighters and the Afghan government over its forces. Not only that, the scenes of public celebrations, Taliban fighters embracing Afghan soldiers and taking selfies together, and a dramatic reduction in bloodshed during those three days showed just how tired everyone in Afghanistan, including those engaged in the fighting, is of their nearly two-decade-long conflict. The Taliban, which is now publicly seeing that the public it claims to represent supports a reconciliation process, has even ordered a halt on attacking civilian targets. The reports of the U.S. offer of direct talks have also strengthened the optimism in the country. [...]
“My interpretation is that the Afghan government sees potential value in a U.S.-Taliban channel with at least two conditions: That it’s coordinated very closely with Kabul and with a great deal of transparency about what’s discussed,” Walsh, who previously served at the State Department as the lead adviser on the Afghan peace process, told me. “And, second, no talks are going to delve into the political future of Afghanistan without the appropriate Afghan representatives in the room.” He said there is no deal the U.S. could make with the Taliban without “a meaningful agreement between the actual stakeholders who have to live with it, and those are Afghans.”
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