Afghanistan suspended security talks with the United States one day before American officials are set to meet with the Taliban for formal talks.
President Hamid Karzai’s office announced the suspension on Wednesday but offered a vague reason for doing so.
“In view of the contradiction between acts and the statements made by the United States in regard to the peace process, the Afghan government suspended the negotiations,” the statement from the office said.
It wasn’t clear whether Karzai’s decision had anything to do with the US-Taliban meeting.
Washington will have its first formal meeting with the Taliban in Doha today (Thursday). Meanwhile, the Taliban told reporters in Doha that they wanted to improve relations with the world.
The Afghan announcement came one day after NATO-led troops transferred security responsibility to Afghan forces.
Washington had been negotiating a bilateral security agreement with the Karzai government, which would set the terms for the United States to maintain troop presence in Afghanistan post-2014.
While Karzai seemed eager to resume stalled peace talks with the Taliban and include them in the political process, a senior US official said reconciliation was likely to be “long, complex and messy” because trust between Afghans and the Taliban was extremely low.