WASHINGTON: A senior US diplomat is set to lead a large delegation on a six-nation tour, including Afghanistan, to boost that country’s peace process and bring “all Afghan parties together in an intra-Afghan dialogue,” the State Department said Sunday.
The statement said Zalmay Khalilzad, a former ambassador to Afghanistan who has undertaken extensive recent talks with the Taliban, would head an interagency delegation from February 10 to 28.
It was unclear whether the group had already left at the time of the statement.
The itinerary will take the US delegation to Belgium, Germany, Turkey, Qatar, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the statement said, adding that Khalilzad would “consult with the Afghan government throughout the trip.”
The emphasis on bringing “all Afghan parties together” appeared crucial. US-Taliban peace talks have not included the Afghan government, which the Taliban considers US-backed puppets, and Khalilzad said recently that intra-Afghan negotiations were essential.
The US envoy has in recent months met several times with Taliban officials in Qatar, where the group’s leaders have an office in the capital Doha.
Khalilzad said Friday that he hoped to see a peace deal in place before Afghanistan’s July presidential elections.
President Donald Trump has been pushing to end US involvement in Afghanistan, where 14,000 American troops are still deployed. But Khalilzad emphasized that any troop withdrawal would depend on conditions on the ground.
Afghanistan has suffered nearly constant conflict since the Soviet invasion of 1979, which was followed by civil war, the Taliban regime, and a US invasion following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.
US envoy to visit Pakistan, Afghanistan for ‘intra-Afghan’ talks
US envoy to visit Pakistan, Afghanistan for ‘intra-Afghan’ talks
- Zalmay Khalilzad will head an interagency delegation from February 10 to 28
- His six-nation tour is focused on bringing ‘all Afghan parties together’
Imran Khan not a ‘national security threat,’ ex-PM’s party responds to Pakistan military
- Pakistan’s military spokesperson on Friday described Khan’s anti-army narrative as a “national security threat”
- PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan says words used by military spokesperson for Khan were “not appropriate”
ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party on Saturday responded to allegations by Pakistan military spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry from a day earlier, saying that he was not a “national security threat.”
Chaudhry, who heads the military’s media wing as director general of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), spoke to journalists on Friday, in which he referred to Khan as a “mentally ill” person several times during the press interaction. Chaudhry described Khan’s anti-army narrative as a “national security threat.”
The military spokesperson was responding to Khan’s social media post this week in which he accused Chief of Defense Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir of being responsible for “the complete collapse of the constitution and rule of law in Pakistan.”
“The people of Pakistan stand with Imran Khan, they stand with PTI,” the party’s secretary-general, Salman Akram Raja, told reporters during a news conference.
“Imran Khan is not a national security threat. Imran Khan has kept the people of this country united.”
Raja said there were several narratives in the country, including those that created tensions along ethnic and sectarian lines, but Khan had rejected all of them and stood with one that the people of Pakistan supported.
PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan, flanked by Raja, criticized the military spokesperson as well, saying his press talk on Thursday had “severely disappointed” him.
“The words that were used [by the military spokesperson] were not appropriate,” Gohar said. “Those words were wrong.”
‘NATURAL OUTCOME’
Speaking to reporters earlier on Saturday, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif defended the military spokesperson’s remarks against Khan.
“When this kind of language is used for individuals as well as for institutions, then a reaction is a natural outcome,” he said.
“The same thing is happening on the Twitter accounts being run in his [Khan’s] name. If the DG ISPR has given any reaction to it, then I believe it was a very measured reaction.”
Khan, who was ousted after a parliamentary vote of confidence in April 2022, blames the country’s powerful military for removing him from power by colluding with his political opponents. Both deny the allegations.
The former prime minister, who has been in prison since August 2023 on a slew of charges he says are politically motivated, also alleges his party was denied victory by the army and his political rivals in the 2024 general election through rigging.
The army and the government both deny his allegations.
