The United States’ desire for political settlement as way forward in Afghanistan is making no headway due to lingering mistrust among parties, with the Afghan president’s demands regarding Qatar office for Taliban talks being the biggest roadblock, a report said Monday. A report in The Washington Post, citing American officials, termed Hamid Karzai as the “biggest cause of U.S. teeth gnashing, and not for the first time.” According to the paper, the crux of the latest disagreement is Karzai’s demand that Qatar produce a written memorandum of understanding agreeing to his preconditions for the Taliban office in Doha, the Qatari capital. The demands include assurances that the office would not be used for any “political purpose” other than direct negotiations with Afghanistan, that it have a fixed time frame and be closed if talks do not take place, and that all Taliban negotiators provide “documentation” proving they are legitimate representatives. President Barack Obama and his Afghan counterpat announced on January 11 during Karzai’s visit that a negotiating office for the Taliban was about to open in the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar, raising optimism that peace talks would soon be back on track. “But January’s optimism has become February’s reality check: There is still no agreement to open the office, and Karzai, back in Kabul after his Washington visit, says there will be no deal until Qatar meets his conditions in writing.” Jump-starting reconciliation has become a key element of its exit strategy, as the Obama administration nears a decision on the pace of U.S. combat troop withdrawals from Afghanistan between now and the end of 2014. Without some kind of political initiative underway as its forces leave, the administration fears that the United States will again be accused of abandoning the region, just as it was at the end of the Soviet Union’s Afghan occupation in the early 1990s. If another civil war breaks out, as many fear, Afghanistan’s neighbors will again feel the need to choose sides, the report speculates. In addition, U.S. hopes of positioning a post-withdrawal counterterrorism force in Afghanistan to continue the fight against remnants of al-Qaeda could be compromised, the report adds.
