The backlash from the Afghan government to Taliban’s naming of their Doha office as the political office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan forced the Obama administration to call on the Qatari government to bring down the signboard and flag just 24 hours after the office was inaugurated.
The naming of the office was one facet of what President Hamid Karzai suggested was a move by the United States to legitimise the insurgents as political stakeholders in Afghanistan.
The seeming offense was enough to cause the Afghan government to announce on Wednesday that it would halt Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) negotiations with the United States and boycott talks with the Doha office.
Senior Afghan officials said that President Obama had given a written agreement to the Afghan government that the office would not be named the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and that there would be no Taliban flag.
Following the remarks made by President Karzai and the announcement of the freezing of negotiations, US Secretary of State John Kerry phoned President Karzai late on Wednesday night to assure him that the signboard and the flag were removed, according to a statement released by the Presidential Palace.
Still, the government in Kabul expressed serious reservations about the negotiation initiative. “The Taliban cannot get through political means what they have been fighting for in the last 12 years,” a senior government official told TOLOnews, going on to refer to the Doha office as a “parallel government”.
“They cannot kill people in Afghanistan everyday and at the same time tour the world to represent Afghanistan and establish relationships. It crosses the line,” the official said.
Afghan officials said the Americans had approached President Karzai at the Bonn Conference in December 2011, saying that they were in touch with the Taliban and they had agreed to open an office in Doha.
President Karzai travelled to Doha two times in the last four months, agreeing to a Taliban office there but always on the condition that it should not be used to represent a parallel government, to collect money for the insurgency or operate as an embassy.
On Tuesday, the Taliban had said that the office would only engage with Afghans “if necessary.” They did not mention the Afghan government specifically in their statement issued on Tuesday.
In turn, the Afghan government has now refused to talk with the Taliban in Qatar and emphasised that it will not participate unless it is allowed to lead the peace process without foreign meddling.
