Russia hails US-Taliban deal as 'important event' for peace

21:33, February 21, 2020

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  Assessing the promise of a US-Taliban peace deal

  Taliban fighters attend a surrender ceremony in Jalalabad city, capital of Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, February 8, 2020. (Photo: Xinhua)The United States and the Taliban are set to sign a landmark peace agreement by the end of this month, outlining the departure of the US troops from Afghanistan against the Taliban’s guarantee to never launch militant attacks from inside the territory. The deal hinges on the success of an ongoing seven-day reduction-in-violence truce, aimed at testing the Taliban‘s appetite for peace, given its history of breaching trust and reinitiating violence.The February deal provides a blueprint for starting the intra-Afghan dialogue, a series of negotiations between Kabul and the Taliban for long-term power sharing. It also allows Washington to synchronize military withdrawal with the Taliban’s counterterrorism guarantees, and minimize risks of exploitation.Yet, deep divisions over Afghanistan’s recent elections threaten to undo any political consensus ahead of talks with the Taliban. Gradual reduction in troops is likely to lessen Washington’s overall leverage. Limitations also surround the degree to which the US council will be welcomed on intra-Afghan talks.The merits of the US-Taliban peace dealWithin 135 days of the deal’s signing, Washington will bring its stationed troops down to 8,600 people. The presence of the US military personnel in the country has been a source of both influence as well as division. It has been influential in the sense that the Taliban’s reluctance to engage with the Kabul government – and vice versa – has allowed Washington to leverage troop withdrawal for direct talks. Conversely, the US presence continues to represent a "foreign power footprint" in Afghanistan, limiting possibilities of any power-sharing consensus among the Afghan government, its civil society, political elites and the Taliban.The deal conditions further reduction in troops on the Talibans counterterrorism commitments, repo...

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  US, Taliban truce takes effect, setting stage for peace deal

  In this May 28, 2019 file photo, Suhail Shaheen, spokesman for the Talibans political office in Doha, speaks to the media in Moscow, Russia. (Photo: AP)A temporary truce between the United States and the Taliban took effect on Friday, setting the stage for the two sides to sign a peace deal next week aimed at ending 18 years of war in Afghanistan and bringing US troops home.If successfully implemented, the weeklong “reduction in violence” agreement, which came into force at midnight Friday local time (1930 GMT, 2:30 p.m. EST), will be followed by the signing of the peace accord on Feb. 29, wrapping up America’s longest-running conflict and fulfilling one of President Donald Trump’s main campaign promises.Friday’s announcement of an agreement on terms for a peace deal follows months of negotiations between the two sides that have broken down before. Yet both parties have signaled a desire to halt the fighting that began with the U.S. invasion after the September 11, 2001, attacks by Osama bin Laden’s Afghanistan-based al-Qaida network.Should the truce stand, the US-Taliban deal would be followed within 10 days by the start of all-Afghan peace talks that could result in the formation of a new government in Kabul, a pledge from the Taliban not to allow terrorist groups to operate in the country, and the phased withdrawal of US and other foreign troops over 18 months.The plan is a gamble for Trump, who retweeted several news accounts of the agreement. If it’s successful, he will be able to claim to have taken a first step toward meeting his 2016 campaign pledge to bring American troops home. But if it fails, Trump could be painted by his Democratic adversaries in an election year as being naïve and willing to sacrifice the security of US soldiers and American interests for the sake of political expediency.For the Taliban, the successful completion of the truce and Afghanistan peace talks would give the group a shot at international legitimacy, which it lacked at th...

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  Trump says he would sign a peace deal with the Taliban

  US President Donald Trump said Sunday he would sign a peace deal with the Taliban if one were eventually reached in Afghanistan."Yes," he told reporters at the White House as he prepared to depart on a trip to India. "I would put my name on it."His comments came after a partial truce took effect in Afghanistan on Saturday, with the Taliban, US, and Afghan forces agreeing to a week-long "reduction in violence."The truce was intended to set conditions for Washington and the insurgents to sign a deal in Doha on February 29 that could ultimately lead to a withdrawal of US forces after more than 18 years.Trump was not specific about what document he would be willing to sign but said decisions were contingent on progress during the initial truce.He said the cooling off period has "been holding up. Its a day and a half. Well see what happens.""I want to see how this period of a week works out," he said."If it works out over the next less-than-a-week, I would put my name on it. Time to come home. And they want to stop," he said."I think the Taliban want to make a deal too. Theyre tired of fighting."