KABUL: Talks with the Taliban on ending Afghanistan’s war are making steady but slow progress, the chief US envoy involved in the negotiations said on Friday while signalling growing frustration with relentless militant violence.
A sixth round of talks ended on Thursday in Qatar with “some progress” on a draft agreement on the withdrawal of foreign troops, a Taliban official said. The United States is seeking a Taliban guarantee they won’t let militants use Afghanistan to stage attacks.
The talks, the most sustained effort to end the 18-year conflict — America’s longest war — began last year.
The sixth round got going on April 30 in Qatar’s capital, Doha, but wound up early in response to a Taliban attack on an aid group in the capital, Kabul, on Wednesday, a senior official with knowledge of the talks said.
The chief US envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, did not say if the talks had ended early, in comments he posted on Twitter, but expressed frustration with Taliban violence that has shown no sign of easing.
“We made steady but slow progress on aspects of the framework for ending the Afghan war. We are getting into the ‘nitty gritty.’ The devil is always in the details,” Khalilzad said.
“However, the current pace of talks isn’t sufficient when so much conflict rages and innocent people die. We need more and faster progress. Our proposal for all sides to reduce violence also remains on the table.”
Nine people were killed and at least 20 were wounded when Taliban fighters set off a big bomb at the gate of the Counterpart International aid group’s office in Kabul, and then battled Afghan security forces for seven hours.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said his fighters attacked the group because it promoted “Western culture,” including the mixing of the genders.
Officials from the aid group were not available for comment.
The attack in Kabul triggered a sense of unease between the US and Taliban negotiators in Qatar, three senior officials said.
“The original plan was to continue the talks,” said one of the officials, who declined to be identified. “It ended abruptly due to the attack.”
“What's the point?”
Last year, US President Donald Trump’s administration accelerated efforts to find a political settlement in Afghanistan and reduce the US troop presence there.
About 17,000 foreign troops are based in Afghanistan — most of them American — as part of a US-led NATO mission to train, assist and advise Afghan forces. Some US forces carry out counter-terrorism operations.
But the Taliban have repeatedly rejected calls for a cease-fire, and they also refuse to talk to the US-backed Afghan government, and have instead stepped up their attacks.
“They are clearly giving a message that they can continue war and peace talks at the same time and are engaged in negotiations from a position of strength,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul.
But the level of violence was putting pressure on the US side to come up with a plan to end it, the diplomat said.
“There is no time left for fake bonhomie when people were dying every hour.”
An aide to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani questioned the entire process, given the Taliban rejection of a cease-fire.
“He appeals for a reduction in violence but clearly the Taliban are not listening,” the presidential aide said, referring to Khalilzad.
“So we wonder, what’s the point of holding talks?“
Relentless Taliban violence casts a pall over ‘slow’ Afghan talks
Relentless Taliban violence casts a pall over ‘slow’ Afghan talks
- The talks, the most sustained effort to end the 18-year conflict — America’s longest war — began last year
- Nine people were killed and at least 20 were wounded when Taliban fighters set off a big bomb at the gate of the Counterpart International aid group’s office in Kabul
NASA’s new moon rocket heads to the pad ahead of astronaut launch as early as February
- The 98-meter rocket began its 1.6 kph creep from Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building at daybreak
- The six-kilometer trek could take until nightfall
CAPE CANAVERAL, USA: NASA’s giant new moon rocket headed to the launch pad Saturday in preparation for astronauts’ first lunar fly-around in more than half a century.
The out-and-back trip could blast off as early as February.
The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket began its 1 mph (1.6 kph) creep from Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building at daybreak. The four-mile (six-kilometer) trek could take until nightfall.
Thousands of space center workers and their families gathered in the predawn chill to witness the long-awaited event, delayed for years. They huddled together ahead of the Space Launch System rocket’s exit from the building, built in the 1960s to accommodate the Saturn V rockets that sent 24 astronauts to the moon during the Apollo program. The cheering crowd was led by NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman and all four astronauts assigned to the mission.
Weighing in at 11 million pounds (5 million kilograms), the Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule on top made the move aboard a massive transporter that was used during the Apollo and shuttle eras. It was upgraded for the SLS rocket’s extra heft.
The first and only other SLS launch — which sent an empty Orion capsule into orbit around the moon — took place back in November 2022.
“This one feels a lot different, putting crew on the rocket and taking the crew around the moon,” NASA’s John Honeycutt said on the eve of the rocket’s rollout.
Heat shield damage and other capsule problems during the initial test flight required extensive analyzes and tests, pushing back this first crew moonshot until now. The astronauts won’t orbit the moon or even land on it. That giant leap will take come on the third flight in the Artemis lineup a few years from now.
Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and Christina Koch — longtime NASA astronauts with spaceflight experience — will be joined on the 10-day mission by Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, a former fighter pilot awaiting his first rocket ride.
They will be the first people to fly to the moon since Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt closed out the triumphant lunar-landing program in 1972. Twelve astronauts strolled the lunar surface, beginning with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969.
NASA is waiting to conduct a fueling test of the SLS rocket on the pad in early February before confirming a launch date. Depending on how the demo goes, “that will ultimately lay out our path toward launch,” launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said on Friday.
The space agency has only five days to launch in the first half of February before bumping into March.
