On Saturday, senior officials in the administration of US President Joe Biden met with representatives of the Afghan Taliban for the first time since the assassination of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in his apartment in Kabul.
The network reported “CNN” The United States said Washington sent the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and a senior State Department official responsible for Afghanistan to the Qatari capital, Doha, to negotiate with a Taliban delegation that included their intelligence chief, Abdul Haq Watik.
After al-Zawahiri was killed in a raid, the United States accused the Taliban of “clear and flagrant violation of the Doha Agreement” brokered by former President Donald Trump’s administration, which said the Taliban would not harbor terrorists if US troops left. from Afghanistan, which was done in August 2021.
After a US drone fired deadly Hellfire missiles at al-Zawahiri, US officials accused Taliban leaders from the Haqqani network of knowing al-Zawahiri’s whereabouts, while the Taliban angrily condemned the operation.
Since then, the United States has continued to engage with the Taliban, including negotiating the release of U.S. citizen Mark Frericks, but senior officials did not meet face-to-face for several days before Zawahiri’s July 31 assassination.
The presence of CIA Deputy Director David Cohen and Abdul Haq Vatik of the Taliban at Saturday’s meeting indicates that the focus is on fighting terrorism.
Last month, the White House described cooperation with the Taliban in the fight against terrorism as “incomplete.”
Cohen was accompanied by the State Department’s special representative for Afghanistan, Tom West, who has led the Taliban since the US pulled out last year.
CNN indicated that the CIA and the US State Department declined to comment on the matter.
Source: CNN, USA