Chaos in White House led to cancel talks with the Taliban
Former Iranian Ambassador to Afghanistan Fada-Hossein Maleki criticized U.S. pace talk with Taliban, saying Washington mistake was to put away the elders and the Afghan government from negotiation table.
In an interview with ILNA news agency, he said “The cancellation of US-Taliban negotiations and canceled a secret Camp David meeting with Taliban leaders is linked to the political crisis and recent clashes in the White House.”
He refers to departure of National Security Advisor John Bolton from the U.S. administration and added I believe that sacking of John Bolton was also partly related to the Afghan case. We have to admit that U.S President was under terrific pressure during the negotiations.
“In other words, the members of the Trump team do not want to sign an agreement with the Taliban.”
Iran ex-envoy said that U.S. envoy for peace in Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad was not on the Trump team originally; he was on the Obama team, and people like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and CIA director David Petraeus are strongly opposed to Khalilzad to win in this issue.
The former ambassador underlined that If Washington wants to re-negotiate, the draft agreement should be seen by the Afghan government and elders.
He further pointed out that establishing peace and security in Afghanistan will have positive effects on other countries as well, while on the other hand, the current behavior of the United States has negative effects on neighboring countries.
Peace talks between the United States and the Taliban began last October in Qatar, with the aim of ending the almost 18-year-old war in Afghanistan. Last Monday, US President Donald Trump announced that negotiations were over without a deal.
"It was astonishing for us because we had already concluded the peace agreement with the American negotiating team," Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesman, told Al Jazeera in Qatar's capital Doha.
The Taliban on Thursday called on the U.S. to restart talks, urging the Trump administration to revisit a nearly completed deal after it abruptly withdrew from the process last week.
President Trump told reporters John Bolton wasn't getting along with some members of his administration. Bolton left on September 10, 2019 after there was a clash over his efforts to hold negotiations with the Taliban and the Iranian president.
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