Taliban: No Deadline for Ending Afghan War Reached in Meetings

Three-day meeting ended with no deal

Jason Ditz 

Posted onNovember 19, 2018CategoriesNewsTagsAfghanistan, Trump

Despite reports of something of a deal, the Taliban has issued a statement denying that a three-day meeting between US and Taliban officials in Qatar had ended with any specific agreement, let alone a deadline for ending the Afghan War.

Last week’s three-day talks had been reported by diplomats to have gone well, and it was hinted that April 2019 was to be the end of the Afghan War. The Afghan government wasn’t involved with these talks, which makes it odd that such a deal could even have been made.

The deadline might’ve made sense in the context of other reports out of the US, including the US planning to demand that the Afghan government cancel their elections, which would be taking place at about the same time.

But there wasn’t much indication that a deal was imminent before that report, and the Taliban has long insisted that a US pullout was a condition for serious talks. This suggests any negotiated deal is probably more than a single three-day meeting away.

https://news.antiwar.com/2018/11/19/trump-pakistan-pm-engage-in-war-of-words-on-twitter/