KABUL: A new round of peace talks between the Taliban and the US starts Wednesday in Qatar, an official for the insurgents said, as the foes seek a way out of America’s longest war.
The talks mark the sixth round of negotiations between the two sides in recent months, and come as pressure builds for some sort of breakthrough in Afghanistan’s gruelling conflict, with Washington jostling for a resolution.
According to Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, the talks “will start in Doha today”.
The US embassy in Kabul did not immediately comment, but the US State Department has already said its peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad will visit Doha, the Qatari capital, this month to meet the Taliban.
Khalilzad, who was born in Afghanistan and is a former US ambassador to the country, has spent several months shuttling between Asian capitals and Washington in a bid to build consensus for a deal.
On Sunday, he said Washington was “a bit impatient” to end the war, given its US $ 45 billion annual cost to the US taxpayer and the continued toll on US forces, some 2,400 of whom have been killed since the US-led invasion in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks.
US President Donald Trump provided additional momentum when in December he told advisors he wanted to pull about half of America’s 14,000 troops from Afghanistan.
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