US defence secretary makes surprise visit to Afghanistan
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan on Sunday to meet with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Austin emphasised the need to achieve a "just and lasting" peace just days before US troops leave the country.
The meeting was the first between a senior official of the new US administration and the Afghan authorities.
"I'm very grateful for my time with President @ashrafghani today. I came to Afghanistan to listen and learn. This visit has been very helpful for me, and it will inform my participation in the review we are undergoing here," Austin commented on his Twitter account.
The Trump administration agreed that May 1 would be the deadline for the troops to leave. The Taliban then pledged to engage in dialogue with the Afghan government to peacefully resolve a conflict that has spanned two decades.
However, US President Joe Biden has already warned that it will be difficult to meet the deadline. In an exclusive interview earlier this week, Biden told ABC News, "I'm in the process of making that decision now as to when they'll leave". He added that "it was not a very solidly negotiated deal that the president, the former president, worked out".
The US government is currently in talks on troop withdrawal with the Afghan government and allies. For their part, the Taliban have flatly rejected the postponement of the US withdrawal date.
Although the Taliban had pledged to hold talks with the Afghan government to pacify the country, so far not only has there been no significant progress, but violence has rebounded.
The Afghan president recently called on the insurgent group to cease hostilities and stop calling for the return of the Islamic emirate that ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, when the US invaded the country after 9/11 and ended the Taliban's fundamentalist rule.
The Taliban have in recent months unleashed a new wave of targeted assassinations against journalists, activists, politicians and intellectuals. The Afghan government has repeatedly accused the Taliban of being responsible for these killings, although the Taliban deny this.
The Taliban's dream is to restore the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and bring the population back under a theocratic regime devoid of rights and freedoms.
"We insist that the Doha agreement be implemented. If they do not, then we will again have certain problems, which would de facto annul the agreement reached in Doha,” threatened Mohammad Naim Wardak, representative of the Taliban's political bureau, from Moscow, where a Russian-sponsored conference to end the conflict was taking place, in case the troops do not finally withdraw on May 1.
In early April, a peace conference proposed by Washington will take place in Istanbul, at which Taliban leader Hibatullah Ajundzada is expected to attend. The Afghan president has confirmed that he will only attend if Ajundzada finally does.
The aim of the UN-led conference, proposed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, is to boost efforts to finally reach a political settlement.
The Afghan government has received several proposals from Blinken to speed up the discussion of the agreement between the parties, as well as to achieve a ceasefire and a reduction in violence in the next 90 days.