The Taliban say they have given the U.S. envoy a document outlining their offer for a temporary cease-fire in Afghanistan that would last between seven and 10 days, kathygannon writes.
FILE - In this May 28, 2019, file photo, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban group's top political leader, second left, arrives with other members of the Taliban delegation for talks in Moscow, Russia. U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad held on Saturday, Dec. 7, 2019 the first official talks with Afghanistan's Taliban since last September when President Donald Trump declared a near-certain peace deal with the insurgents dead.
The cease-fire offer was handed to Zalmay Khalilzad, Washington’s envoy for talks with the insurgents, late on Wednesday in Qatar, a Gulf Arab country where the Taliban maintain a political office. But the Taliban have been refusing to talk with the Kabul government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah. The two are currently fighting over who won last year’s presidential elections. The initial vote count gave Ghani the win but Abdullah, who came in second, is contesting the count. A final outcome has yet to be announced by Afghanistan’s election commission.
A Taliban official said that mistrust has long characterized the U.S.-Taliban talks and that the insurgents hesitated to offer a more permanent cease-fire without having U.S. troops pull out first. Should the truce deal fall, returning Taliban fighters to the battlefield with the same intensity could be a problem, the official said.
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