Afghan Intelligence Officials Talk Almost Daily With Taliban

Officials Say Peace Talks Still Far Away

Jason Ditz 

Posted onAugust 29, 2017CategoriesNewsTagsAfghanistan

Afghan officials have revealed that despite there not having been organized peace talks with the Taliban for years, they are in regular contact with the Taliban, and that the nation’s intelligence chiefs speak with Taliban commanders on a near daily basis.

Talks center on the basis of a future peace process, including a constitution and the political future of Afghanistan, though Afghan officials say that this is still far short of the sot of discussion that could lead to real peace talks.

The talks take place in part through the Pakistani government serving as an intermediary for some Taliban figures, but also through the Gulf state of Qatar, which hosts a Taliban office originally opened to serve the last peace talks.

Officials revealed some very specific issues have been sorted out, with the Taliban wanting special courts to oversee legal challenges related to land seizures since the 2001 US invasion, and agreeing women can hold virtually all political offices except president and supreme court judges.

These sorts of details suggest the talks are really a fair distance along, despite them not being actual peace talks, and there still being no timetable for them to become such. The US, committed to further escalation, has not commented on this matter.

http://news.antiwar.com/2017/08/29/afghan-intelligence-officials-talk-almost-daily-with-taliban/