Islamic Emirate Of Afghanistan Aim To Sign Deal With US By End Of January

The statement by Suhail Shaheen to Pakistani daily Dawn comes as the group and the US held discussions in Doha this week after insurgent sources told AFP they had offered to initiate a brief ceasefire.

The Taliban are aiming to reach a withdrawal agreement with the US by the end of January and are prepared to “scale down” military operations ahead of signing the deal, according to their chief spokesman.

“We have agreed to scale down military operations in days leading up to the signing of the peace agreement with the United States,” Shaheen told Dawn in a report published Saturday.

“It’s now a matter of days,” said the spokesman.

Washington has for weeks been calling on the militants to reduce violence, posing it as a condition for resuming formal negotiations on an agreement that would see US troops begin to leave the country in return for security guarantees, after a near two-decade fight.

The Taliban and the US had been negotiating the deal for a year and were on the brink of an announcement in September 2019 when President Donald Trump abruptly declared the process “dead”, citing Taliban violence.

Any agreement with the Taliban is expected to have two main pillars — an American withdrawal from Afghanistan, and a commitment by the insurgents not to offer sanctuary to jihadists — and would ultimately have to be given final approval by Trump.

The Taliban’s relationship with Al-Qaeda was the main reason cited for the US invasion more than 18 years ago.

Many observers agree that the war can no longer be won militarily and that the only route to a lasting peace in Afghanistan is for an agreement between the Taliban and the US-backed government in Kabul.