In the two months since Donald Trump became president, the Taliban intensified his efforts to get closer to the American administration, seeming to see an opportunity to restore official ties and a US presence, according to people familiar with US conversations with the group, which is still designated as a terrorist organization by Washington.
“There is a positive way, and if they go this way, we will go it too,” said an American officer, who described the first conversations as “exploratory” and fluids.
“I would not discard negative things either,” said the official, emphasizing that the normalization of ties would not be expected in the short term.
In conversations last month with US officials in Cabul, to ensure the release of an American prisoner, Taliban representatives again raised the possibility of the US recognizing the group as the official government of Afghanistan.
The Taliban also filed a request to open an office in the US to deal with issues related to the Afghan community, said the officer and a second person familiar with the discussions. The office would not necessarily be an embassy and the location could be somewhere outside Washington, proposed Taliban’s officers.
Establishing formal diplomatic ties with the Taliban would mark a profound change in relations between the US and Afghanistan after the country’s taking by the group after the US removed its forces from the country in 2021. This occurred after almost two decades of fighting, which resulted in the deaths of almost 2,500 American soldiers.
It was Trump’s first year of the first term that he reached an agreement with the Taliban, which stipulated the total withdrawal of US troops in 2021, which meant this would occur under the government of President Joe Biden.
When Afghan security forces collapsed and allowed the Taliban to seize power in August 2021, the Biden administration performed the chaotic withdrawal, with dramatic scenes of desperate Afghan running behind withdrawals at Cabul airport.
Almost 200 Afghan and 13 American military personnel were killed by an Islamic State-man man at the airport door.
Following last month’s meeting about the release of the American mechanic by airplane George Glezmann, both Taliban and Trump’s former enviation for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, who traveled to Cabul to rescue him, said the measure was a “goodwill gesture.”
Glezmann’s release was mediated by Qatar, where Taliban officials have been hosted for years. After Glezmann’s release, the Taliban released American Faye Hall less than two weeks later, again without demanding any prisoners exchange.
In January, the group postponed the release of two other Americans until after Trump took office to allow him to receive credit instead of Joe Biden. In this case, a member of the Taliban convicted of narcoterrorism in the US was returned.
“They realize that this is a step by step standardization,” said the second person familiar with the negotiations. The group is “eager to please Trump” and understood that they needed to offer something to the US President, who is known for his transactional approach.
The actions are not just on the Taliban side.
Following Glezmann’s release, the US removed millions of dollars in rewards on three members of the Haqqani network, which for years has performed deadly attacks against US forces and is still designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the US. One of them, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is the interior minister of the Taliban.
The three kept their designations in the US as terrorists, but the rewards are being magazines, an American officer said.
“If all Americans are not released, very large rewards for information about the leaders will be offered, perhaps even greater than those offered by information about information [Osama] Bin Laden, ”said another American officer after Glezmann’s release, echoing a similar warning previously made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The March meeting in Cabul was led by the American side by Adam Boehler, whom Trump took charge of releasing the detainees around the world. He sat next to Khalilzad, who has no official role, but led negotiations with Taliban during Trump’s first term about US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Before Trump took office, Taliban did not only ask for normalized ties, but also the release of prisoners held by the US in Guantanamo. They also wanted billions of dollars unlocked, said a former American officer who got involved with the Taliban.
“I told them that unconditional releases [significam] Great relationships with Trump. Clean your detention cells-Trump will be free to work with you, ”said the former officer, adding that they also warned,” Wait Americans: wait for cruise missiles. “
The Taliban admires Trump, continued the former official, and the apparent force he projects.
Trump was also praised about the group’s fighters in the past, calling them “good combatants” and “really intelligent” in an interview with Fox News during the Biden presidency.
During his own first term, Trump secretly invited Taliban to Camp David to talk about the removal of US troops from Afghanistan and a peace agreement with the Afghan government just before September 11th anniversary.
The decision divided his team and Trump dismissed the plans, claiming that he canceled the negotiations after a Taliban attack that killed an American soldier.
When this became public, there was a great cry, including from the then congressman Mike Waltz, who now acts as Trump National Security Counselor.
Despite having agreed with US withdrawal in early 2020, Trump repeatedly attacked Biden for the catastrophic manner how the withdrawal occurred and made it a central question in last year’s election campaign.
Last week, Trump again raised the possibility of demanding that the Taliban return US military equipment, accusing Biden of abandoning equipment worth billions of dollars. The Taliban so far refused.
The group was not mentioned in the annual report recently published by the intelligence community about global threats to the United States. But an ordinary enemy was: the Islamic State-Khorasan, which the report called the “most capable arm” of the Islamic State.
According to the terms of the agreement signed in 2020, the Taliban should prevent another terrorist group from al-Qaeda from reorganizing. However, the ties remained and in 2022 the Biden administration aimed and killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, with a missile fired from a drone against his home in Cabul.
No country has recognized the Taliban as the official government of Afghanistan, but the group is advancing on the diplomatic stage.
The Taliban now has ambassadors in China and the United Arab Emirates, as well as a longtime political office in Doha. The regime also established diplomatic posts around the world and sent diplomats to occupy them.
In Washington, the Embassy of Afghanistan remains closed, but its reopening under the Taliban government would undoubtedly be a great achievement.
“You need to be transparent and take risks,” is what Taliban was informed at the March meeting in Cabul, according to the person familiar with her. “Do this, you’ll probably open the door for a better relationship.”
This content was originally published in Taliban seeking diplomatic recognition in negotiations with Trump administration on CNN Brazil.
Source: CNN Brasil
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