The fifth round of the peace talks between the United States and the Taliban was held in Doha, Qatar February 25 with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, deputy leader of the Taliban in attendance. In the new round of the talks between the United States and the Taliban, for the first time, Zalmay Khalilzad, the special envoy of the US State Department met with the Deputy Leader of the Taliban.
It seems that the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, Taliban’s cooperation in the fight against al-Qaeda and ISIS, the cease-fire and the onset of talks with the Afghan government were among the key issues in the Qatari talks.
According to the official announcement of the talks, the parties have negotiated the end of the US military presence, and it has been argued that in the next three to five years all US troops should leave Afghanistan, but the truth is that no details have been disclosed to find out whether a genuine agreement has been reached, and whether the United States has put any proposals on the negotiating table to encourage the Taliban to accept a political solution.
The important point about Doha talks is that the level of the negotiations is much higher than the previous round, as the presence of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban No. 2 reflects the importance of the Doha talks.
Although head of the Taliban delegation to the talks Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai leads the negotiations, the presence of Baradar means the Taliban has decided to adopt a political solution.
There is, of course, an obstacle in the way of the Doha talks, namely Taliban’s persistence that it will not hold talks with the Kabul government. This Taliban position has made it harder for Zalmay Khalilzad because his ultimate goal is to pave the way for a meeting between the central government and the Taliban so that he could ultimately organize intra-Afghan talks. In fact, the Taliban has declared on the one hand that it did not recognize the Kabul government and said on the other hand, it would accept intra-Afghan talks under conditions that they would take place between the Afghan people and political and social groups.
Due to these obstacles, the negotiations have been halted so that the parties would coordinate their positions with their higher level leaders and then continue the talks. In general, there is a perception that the Doha talks have made some progress compared with the previous talks, but the progress of the negotiations and the fact that how far the two sides could bring their positions closer is still ambiguous.
In fact, in order to really advance the peace talks, the Taliban must accept to negotiate with the central government, and Khalilzad and the Americans must accept the withdrawal of their troops from Afghanistan, which is the main cause of the impasse in the talks between the Taliban and the United States. Meanwhile, if political, partisan and jihadist groups could agree on someone like Hamid Karzai to accept the chairmanship of the delegation and the government, there might be a rational solution the Taliban would accept as a non-governmental body. If that happens and the talks continue in this course, the negotiations may yield some results.
Ultimately, the conditions are such that the parties believe the war in Afghanistan must be brought under control in one way or the other. The point that the Taliban is the main leader of the war is almost over. Even Pakistan is trying to reach some compromise with the Taliban and seize part of the power in Kabul.
Of course, the war in Afghanistan will continue in other ways, by groups other than the Taliban, and on different issues; for example, groups such as ISIS or in the name of ISIS will pursue wars in some parts of Central Asia, and the Americans will also follow up the matter to put an end to the Taliban issue.