US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday he hoped proposed US talks with the Taliban are put back on track after this week’s delays, and warned that a recently opened Taliban office in Qatar may have to close if peace talks do not proceed.
“We need to see if we can get back on track,” Kerry told a news conference. “I don’t know whether that’s possible or not. If there is not a decision … to move forward by the Taliban in short order, then we may have to consider whether or not the office has to be closed,” he said.
Peace talks between US and Taliban representatives were thrown off course Wednesday after irate Afghan President Hamid Karzai suspended his involvement due to a dispute over a recently opened Taliban office in the Qatari capital of Doha, which had been established in anticipation of the proposed talks.
In a statement, Karzai accused the US of a “contradiction” after a sign that was placed over the Taliban office bore the name of the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” – the country’s title during the Taliban regime of the 1990s.
Amid a diplomatic kerfuffle, the State Department on Wednesday announced that the Qatari government removed the sign board bearing the disputed name.
“The Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a statement clarifying that the name of the office is the Political Office of the Afghan Taliban and not the Political Office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and that it had the sign with the incorrect name in front of the door taken down,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.