US-Taliban agreement has no element of peace says Haqqani

TIL Desk/World/Washington/ The agreement between the US and the Taliban has no element of peace and is basically a withdrawal pact for American troops from the war-torn Afghanistan, a former Pakistani diplomat has said.

“As a longtime critic of the US and Taliban agreement, I see it as a withdrawal agreement with no elements of peace. The Taliban were made to commit to only one thing, that they would enter intra-Afghan talks, not that they would agree to peace,” Husain Haqqani, the former Pakistani Ambassador to the US, said on Friday during a virtual event “The Afghan Peace Process: Progress or Peril?” organised by the Hudson Institute think-tank.

The Trump administration signed the peace deal with Taliban in February last year in Doha. The accord drew up plans for withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in exchange for security guarantees from the insurgent group. As part of the deal, the US committed to withdraw its 12,000 troops within 14 months. There are currently only 2,500 American troops left in the country.

The Taliban committed to prevent other groups, including al Qaeda, from using Afghan soil to recruit, train or fund raise toward activities that threaten the US or its allies. Haqqani said the definition of peace for the Taliban is very different from the US.