Afghan Presidential spokesman Sediq Sediqi said on Saturday that the US-Taliban agreement had so far failed to control militant-linked violence or paving the way for a ceasefire. He said that the Taliban have not lived up to their commitments, which came after a telephone conversation between Jake Sullivan, the new US national security adviser, and his Afghan counterpart Hamdullah Mohib. A day earlier, the Biden administration said it was looking to review the pact between Washington and the Taliban. Mohib told the US NSA that Kabul wanted to work toward a permanent ceasefire and durable peace in Afghanistan. As per Mohib’s claim, Sullivan affirmed that the partnership with the government of Afghanistan remained a priority and a key to US national security objectives.
Under the agreement signed in February last year, the United States had reduced its troops up to 2500 and US and allies will pull out all troops from Afghanistan by May 2021. On other hand, Taliban must honour their obligations under the agreement not to allow al-Qaeda or other militants to operate in areas under their control.
As a matter of fact, there was increase in violence and terrorist activities across Afghanistan during recent weeks. Although, Taliban did not take responsibility of these attacks, but United States and Afghanistan pointed finger on Taliban. The recent attack on two female Judges in Afghanistan has supported their view because till time Taliban did not node positive to similar women’s role in post peace Afghanistan as they are enjoying today. However, the US-Taliban deal, called on Taliban not to allow militant groups to use their under-control areas for lodging terrorist attacks. Taliban are answerable for it. But there are numerous other factions and proxies, which can easily do these nefarious acts and put blame on other party. So, these is an urgent need to sort out the responsibility of the attacks in the light of transparent investigation to fix the responsibility.
On other side, the involvement of third party in recent attacks cannot be ruled out, because, there are sufficient evidence that the ongoing peace process does not fulfill the interests of various players in and outside of Afghanistan. The opponent of peace process could not find a space during Trump administration to scrape the US-Taliban deal, however, they got a chance, by mounting pressure due to increase in violence during recent weeks.
Biden administration has full right to review the US-Taliban deal, however, as suggested by Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, the continuation of peace process is essential and provides base for future engagement to conclude durable and peaceful solution of the Afghan conflict.
