From Stalemate towards Settlement: Afghan Peace Process

Abstract

United States and Taliban’s complicated relations date back to 9/11, when Taliban had provided refuge to alleged attackers of the terrific attacks. After that, series of atrocities committed by both sides and then finally in 2013, an effort was made to have informal presence of Taliban in Qatar, but the idea rejected by Karzai government. After that, two meetings were held in Urumqi and Murree, these meeting were between the representatives of Afghan government and Taliban, United States attended the meeting as an observer. The peace process halted after the news of death of Mullah Omar just the day before second round of Murree progress, because his death triggered uncertainty in the peace process. The peace process was renewed in 2018 when United States shared table with Taliban, the peace process was moving relatively smooth until the recent meeting which was scheduled in Qatar on 9th and 10th January 2019. It was canceled by Taliban leaders over the disagreement on the agenda of that meeting. Taliban have some demands, including the withdrawal of foreign troops, release of Taliban prisoners, change of constitution, to remove the name of Taliban leaders from UNSC list and the permission to have political presence in Qatar. United States now wants to get rid of Afghanistan and to make the peace process Afghan-led and Afghan-owned, to which Taliban are reluctant. The continued efforts of US and the current uncertain situation are apparently leading to no possible consensus among the adversaries in near future. It seems that this continued uncertainty will ultimately lead to chaos in Afghanistan, because of diversity and war-prone nature of the country.