Although the Taliban derive their main wish from this agreement – the withdrawal of US troops – they have remained vague in their commitments to protect civil rights, which they brutally repressed when they were in power. The United States and the Taliban signed the peace agreement on February 29 in Doha, Qatar. The United States and the Taliban signed a peace agreement, a turning point in the 18-year war in Afghanistan. Read the full story. While it is not clear who speaks on behalf of the Afghan government, it is also unclear who speaks on behalf of the Taliban. The Taliban are not a single unified organization, but are made up of various commanders and militias across Afghanistan, many of whom have conflicting ideas about the war and now about the peace agreement. The Taliban leaders who negotiated the peace deal belong to the Taliban leadership group known as Quetta Shura. This group operates from Pakistan and is largely a political and economic organization. The Quetta Shura controls the highly profitable opium and heroin trade that finances the Taliban`s military operations in Afghanistan. The Quetta Shura is ruled by high-ranking Taliban, including Haibutullah Akhundzada, Mohammed Yaqub, Mohammed Omar and Abdul Ghani Baradar.

The Doha Agreement, also known as the Afghanistan Peacemaking Agreement, is a peace agreement signed by the United States and the Taliban on February 29, 2020 to end the war in Afghanistan. [1] The quadrilateral agreement was signed at the Sheraton Grand Doha in Doha, Qatar, and published on the U.S. State Department website. [2] [best source needed] It was negotiated by Zalmay Khalilzad. But after the U.S. promised the Taliban to withdraw their troops within a set time frame, with the Taliban pledging to strike a peace deal with the Afghan government, the chances of a negotiated end to the war began to crumble, experts said. After more than a year of talks, the deal marks the beginning of the end of America`s longest war. But many obstacles remain. After the signing of the Doha Agreement on 29 February 2020, insurgent attacks on Afghan security forces increased.

The Taliban resumed offensive operations against the Afghan army and police on March 3, 2020, carrying out attacks in Kunduz and Helmand provinces. [45] On March 4, the United States carried out airstrikes on Taliban fighters in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan. [46] In the 45 days following the agreement (between March 1 and April 15, 2020), the Taliban carried out more than 4,500 attacks in Afghanistan, an increase of more than 70% compared to the same period last year. [47] More than 900 members of the Afghan security forces were killed during this period, up from about 520 at the same time last year. Due to a significant decrease in the number of offensives and airstrikes carried out by Afghan and US forces against the Taliban, Taliban casualties fell to 610 during the reporting period, from about 1,660 at the same time last year. Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said that although the Taliban had stopped carrying out attacks against US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, the violence was still ”unacceptably high” and ”not conducive to a diplomatic solution.” He added: ”We have continued to carry out defensive attacks to defend our partners in the region and we will continue to do so.” [47] Eighteen months later, President Joe Biden refers to the deal signed in Doha, Qatar, as he tries to deflect blame for the Taliban who invaded Afghanistan in a flash. He says this has forced him to withdraw U.S. troops and prepare the ground for the chaos engulfing the country. The agreement, officially titled ”Afghanistan PeaceMaking Agreement”, is little more than 3 pages long and is written in three languages; Dari, Pashto and English. It consists of two parts; The Taliban agree that ”Afghan soil will not be used against the security of the United States and its allies,” and the United States accepts the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan. The agreement was signed through a 7-day ”violence reduction,” a term used instead of a ”ceasefire,” a term the Taliban rejected, in part because a ”ceasefire” signaled an end to hostilities to which the Taliban were unwilling to engage.

Finally, the agreement stipulates that the United States will begin diplomatic talks with the United Nations to remove Taliban members from the ”sanctions list.” ”The deal will mean nothing — and today`s good feelings won`t last — unless we take concrete action against the commitments made and the promises made,” Pompeo said. As the agreement contains terms on various steps the Afghan government should take, their non-participation in the talks has created an obstacle to future negotiations and angered Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and other Afghan officials. Specifically, the United States agreed in the agreement that up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners would be released by the Afghan government by March 10, 2020, as ”trust builders” between the Taliban and the Kabul government, and that the Taliban would release 1,000 prisoners to detain at the same time. However, the prisoners are being held by the Afghan government, not the United States. Since the Afghan government was not part of the agreement, it has no obligation to release Taliban prisoners it considers terrorists. As a result, the next stage of negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government is suspended. The agreement also stipulates that the Taliban and the Afghan government will begin ”dialogue and negotiations” on March 10, 2020, a date that has already passed. The specific themes of this ”dialogue and negotiations” are not specified, but it is believed that they include at least the role of the Taliban in a future Afghan government, the role of Islamic law in the Afghan constitution, the protection and rights of women and other minorities, and ultimately the leadership of the country. A precursor to intra-Afghan negotiations, the agreement stipulates that the United States agrees to ”cooperate with all parties concerned” on the release of combat and political prisoners.

The agreement stipulated that the Afghan government would have until September 10. March 2020 5000 Taliban prisoners and the Taliban 1000 Afghan prisoners would be released. The release of the prisoners is described as a ”confidence-building” to fuel discussions between the Taliban and the Afghan government. Nevertheless, negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban on the release of the prisoners began as planned on March 10, 2020. On the same day, however, Ghani also signed a decree on the release of 1,500 Taliban prisoners on March 14, but only if they agreed to sign pledges guaranteeing they would not return to combat. [19] On the same day, the United States began withdrawing some troops. [20] Despite the fact that the terms of the peace agreement were also unanimously supported by the UN Security Council,[21] Taliban-affiliated sources, including Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen, later announced that the group had rejected Ghani`s prisoner exchange decree while insisting on the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners. [22] [23] [24] On March 14, 2020, Javid Faisal, spokesman for the National Security Council, announced that Ghani had delayed the release of Taliban prisoners because the list of prisoners needed to be revised, jeopardizing the peace agreement between the U.S.

government and the Taliban. [25] United States. . . .