Taliban accused US of violating Doha deal

Sohail Shaheen, a spokesman for the Taliban’s political bureau in Qatar, said US forces have carried out drones strikes in “non-combat zone” in Helmand, Zabul and Ghazni provinces, claiming they have violated the Doha agreement.

“US forces today have carried out airstrikes on civilian areas in Helmand, Ghazni and Zabul provinces with their drones; this is against the Doha peace agreement which is not acceptable for the Taliban,” Shaheen said.

Failure to complete the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners, US airstrikes on the Taliban, and the non-omission of the group’s commanders from the UN blacklist are cases in which the Taliban claim that the Doha peace agreement has been violated.

But the attack on the center of Samangan was a case in which the government and the United States called a violation of the Doha peace agreement by the Taliban. The government says it has made every effort to start negotiations between the Afghans, but it is the Taliban who have turned to war and made the peace process complicated. 

The Afghan government’s peace negotiating team with the Taliban says the government has shown goodwill with the release of Taliban prisoners and the start of unconditional peace talks, and now is the time for the Taliban to give the green light.

“The Afghan government has shown a lot of goodwill towards the Taliban, the Taliban need to show goodwill,” said Ghulam Farooq Majrooh, a member of the government’s peace negotiating team with the Taliban.

Coinciding with the criticism, Sultan Barakat, director of the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies at the Doha Institute, published a letter with the names of 45 Afghan civil and political activists, saying he had invited them to an informal meeting in Doha, Qatar, in the near future.