Afghan and Taliban Negotiators Agree on Peace Talks’ Procedures

The Afghan government and Taliban negotiators in Qatar have approved the principles and procedures that will guide the ongoing peace negotiations between them, the Taliban and Afghan officials announced on Wednesday. This is an important step that could pave the way for conversations that have been hampered by disagreement for more than two months.

“The proceedings including the preamble to the negotiations have been completed,” said Nader Nadery, a member of the government’s negotiating team, on Twitter. Almost simultaneously, Mohammad Naeem, a spokesman for the Taliban, published a nearly identical tweet in Pashto.

With the issues of conducting the talks resolved, negotiators are likely to focus on a mutual political roadmap and a long-term nationwide ceasefire.

The deal comes after both sides were on the brink of a breakthrough last month. The Taliban and government negotiators had agreed in principle on about two dozen procedural items, Afghan officials said, but a specific agreement was blocked by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani when he instructed the government negotiating team to include at least one other condition: the referral of the government under his official name, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, in the guidance documents.

These kinds of details have interrupted previous negotiation efforts. The Taliban’s earlier insistence on being referred to as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – the name of their government when they were in power in the 1990s – derailed talks efforts in 2013.

Officials said Mr Ghani likely tried to delay talks in hopes the incoming Biden administration would trace the ongoing withdrawal of US troops or change their approach to overseeing the peace negotiations. Under President Trump, Afghan officials complained bitterly that they were excluded from the US-Taliban peace talks and bullied in parts of the process for political expediency.

In a statement Monday, Sediq Sediqqi, an Afghan presidential spokesman, denied such allegations about the stalled negotiations, saying that Mr. Ghani “is steadfast in his determination to make the peace talks a success”. On Wednesday, Sediqqi said the Afghan President “welcomes the conclusion of the negotiated procedures”.

How both sides resolved their procedural disputes is not entirely clear, but two Afghan officials familiar with the talks said the settlement was reached on Wednesday without the official name of the Afghan government or any mention of the Islamic emirate in the documents.

The agreed principles sparked a reference to the Hanafi School of Islamic Thought, one of the four major Sunni schools that also forms the basis of the current Afghan constitution. Initially, both sides disagreed over a formulation that did not alienate other sects, particularly the Shiite minority in Afghanistan. Officials said the dispute was settled in favor of the Afghan government’s approach and disagreements will instead be referred to a religious committee.

The inclusion of the February 29 agreement between the Taliban and the US government was another point of contention. This agreement initiated the withdrawal of US and NATO forces in exchange for the Taliban’s pledges to fight terrorism and the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners.

The Afghan government refused to include the agreement in its agreements with the Taliban as the government was not part of the agreement. To resolve the issue, mention is made of the February agreement, but the guidelines included a reference to at least one other framework document, officials said.

“When negotiations on a political road map and a permanent ceasefire begin, we will work hard with all sides during this time to seriously reduce the violence and even the ceasefire,” wrote Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special envoy on Afghan peace, on Twitter Wednesday, shortly after the announcement. “That is what the Afghan people want and deserve.”

The month-long talks in Doha, Qatar’s capital, were marked by near-constant violence in Afghanistan as the Taliban moved south and north before winter. According to the New York Times, at least 205 Afghan security forces and 196 civilians were killed in the fighting in Afghanistan in November.

Thomas Gibbons-Neff reported from Geneva and Fatima Faizi from Kabul, Afghanistan.

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