Afghan govt constitutes 21-member team for negotiation with Taliban

The Afghanistan government announced an official 21-member team to negotiate with the Taliban, taking a step closer to the much-awaited intra-Afghan talks.

The list, announced the ministry of peace, is headed by former Afghan intelligence chief Masoom Stanekzai who is a supporter of President Ashraf Ghani, and includes politicians, youth and representatives of civil society. There are also five women on the team, including Fawzia Koofi, a woman's rights activist who has been a vocal critic of Taliban.

The biggest roadblock for the intra-Afghan talks, which were to take place on March 10, has been cleared—the release of prisoners.

While President Ashraf Ghani had refused release them initially, resulting in the first crisis in the US-Taliban agreement signed in Doha, the demand by the Taliban was met after the US exerted much pressure. The prisoners will be released on March 31.

“This is a positive development,’’ tweeted US special representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad recently. “The second technical meeting on prisoner exchanges between the Afghan government and the Taliban took place, again by video conferencing. The two sides agreed prisoner releases by both sides will start March 31.”

For America, this is progress. Desperate for a quick exit, the US has signalled to the Afghan government that they will continue to deal with the Taliban.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in expressed “disappointment’’ in Kabul’s inability to come to a compromise between President Ashraf Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah who has formed a parallel government. “Their failure has harmed US-Afghan relations,’’ a press statement issued by Pompeo read. The US has also cut assistance to Afghanistan by $1 billion this year, and is prepared to do again next year.

The intra-Afghan talks have been termed the “real negotiations’’ by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar. Unlikely to be easy, this is where hopefully the the future of Afghanistan will be shaped. This progress in the talks, however, come in the shadow of the brutal attack on the gurudwara in Kabul in which 25 people were killed. The ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack saying it was an act of revenge for Kashmir.

The withdrawal of the US troops with an aid cut that may impact the defence budget of Afghanistan makes the situation more fragile in the region.