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Taliban, Pak interested in withdrawal of international forces: Diplomat The Taliban and Pakistan are interested in the withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan more than a peace settlement, a former Pakistani diplomat has said
The Taliban and Pakistan are interested in the withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan more than a peace settlement, a former Pakistani diplomat has said, warning that the ongoing peace talks in Doha are headed towards failure. I am not optimistic about the outcome of the talks. The US has made all the major concessions up front. The Taliban know that the US is eager to withdraw from Afghanistan. As they see it, they are just negotiating the withdrawal of foreign forces and the restoration of the status quo ante, when they ruled Afghanistan as its Islamic
Emirate, Pakistan’s former Ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani said on Monday. That is unacceptable to the rest of the Afghans, said Haqqani in a testifying, virtually, before the British House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee. Drawing parallels between the US negotiating strategy towards the Taliban with the Paris Peace Talks at the end of the war in Vietnam, he said that then Henry Kissinger said he wanted a decent interval between the US withdrawal and the collapse of the US-backed government of South Vietnam. The Afghan government could prove stronger than the US-backed South Vietnam government and might fight on for a pluralist Afghanistan with the support of other countries, including India, he said. The US withdrawal was a function of America’s tendency to lose interest in wars that go on too long, he added. President (Donald) Trump wants to withdraw regardless of the consequences. If that happens, a Pakistan-backed Taliban march in Kabul is the most likely outcome. As it is unlikely that the people of Afghanistan will accept the return of the Taliban to power, there could be a civil war again, Haqqani said.