U.S., Taliban poised to sign a peace deal

Feb. 29 target date requires a week of reduced violence

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks at a news conference Wednesday at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The countdown to the signing of a peace agreement between the Taliban and the United States to end the 18 years of war in Afghanistan will begin on Friday night, when the seven-day "reduction of violence" promised by the Taliban will go into effect, a senior U.S. State Department official said. The deal will be signed on Feb. 29.(Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Pool via AP)
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks at a news conference Wednesday at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The countdown to the signing of a peace agreement between the Taliban and the United States to end the 18 years of war in Afghanistan will begin on Friday night, when the seven-day "reduction of violence" promised by the Taliban will go into effect, a senior U.S. State Department official said. The deal will be signed on Feb. 29.(Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Pool via AP)

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The United States plans to sign a peace deal with the Taliban on Feb. 29 as long as a weeklong reduction in violence across the country holds, said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The Taliban also released a statement confirming the plan to sign a peace deal that day.

The deal would end America's longest war after more than 18 years.

The violence reduction, the decisive condition of the possible peace deal, was set to begin early today -- just after midnight, according to Afghanistan's National Security Council and a senior State Department official.

"U.S. negotiators in Doha have come to an understanding with the Taliban on a significant and nationwide reduction in violence across Afghanistan," Pompeo said in a statement Friday, referring to U.S.-Taliban talks in the Qatari capital.

"Upon a successful implementation of this understanding, signing of the U.S.-Taliban agreement is expected to move forward."

The Taliban said "both parties will now create a suitable security situation in advance of agreement signing date, extend invitations to senior representatives of numerous countries and organizations to participate in the signing ceremony, make arrangements for the release of prisoners" and prepare for intra-Afghan negotiations, according to the group's statement released to the media Friday.

"I call on all Afghans to seize this opportunity," Pompeo wrote on Twitter on Friday.

The agreement on terms for a peace deal follows months of negotiations between the two sides that have broken down before. Yet both parties have signaled a desire to halt the fighting that began with the U.S. invasion after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by Osama bin Laden's Afghanistan-based al-Qaida network.

For the Taliban, the successful completion of the truce and Afghanistan peace talks would give the group a chance at international legitimacy, which it lacked at the time it ran the country and gave bin Laden and his associates safe haven.

The U.S. military command in Kabul said it has nothing to announce at this time.

The weeklong reduction in violence will require the Taliban, the United States and Afghan government-aligned forces to largely cease all planned offensive operations nationwide. The period is not being called a cease-fire, and U.S. forces will continue to carry out counterterrorism operations against groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

In preparation for the violence reduction, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has been meeting all provincial security and political leaders in recent days. He told one group that the Taliban currently carry out about 80 attacks a day, and that a reduction to about 10 attacks would be seen as a successful implementation.

"Our brave security and defense forces will only act in defense of themselves and the honorable people of Afghanistan," he said in a televised address late Friday.

Taliban leaders scrambled to get their message of minimizing violence to the lowest units of what has increasingly been a decentralized force.

In private WhatsApp messages, Taliban commanders can be heard taking pains to strike a nuance: They want fighters to hold fire and not attack, but to stay vigilant in their positions and not venture into cities and government territory.

U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, the chief U.S. negotiator, said he was "cautiously optimistic" about the prospects for peace, but described potential "spoilers" as groups both inside and outside Afghanistan that do not see a peace deal in their interest and would rather see the conflict continue. Khalilzad spoke at a United Nations conference in Islamabad, Pakistan, this week.

A COUNTRY DIVIDED

After the signing of the U.S.-Taliban peace deal, the Afghan government will launch its own round of talks with the Taliban. Ghani has said that he will build a negotiating team that is inclusive, but following disputed election results announced this week, Afghan politics is deeply divided.

Ghani and his chief rival, Abdullah Abdullah, both declared victory after the results were announced. Abdullah, the country's chief executive, declared the results illegal and announced he will begin setting up a parallel government. Should this political turmoil persist, it will further complicate the formation of a strong, inclusive team to negotiate with the Taliban.

The U.S. government still has not acknowledged Ghani's victory. The only public comment it has made on the results hinted at concern that the electoral mess might make matters worse.

"It is likely that these developments could add to the challenges Afghanistan faces, including the challenges of the peace process," Molly Phee, Khalilzad's deputy in negotiations, said Tuesday at the United States Institute of Peace, a government-funded policy group in Washington. "Our priority, and what we believe to be the priority of most Afghans, remains peace and the peace process."

Analysts said the conflict was unlikely to affect the first steps of the peace process, as U.S. officials had made it clear to everyone that their priority was starting the violence reduction.

"The U.S. has clearly put its weight on the peace issue, and that message is clear to all sides -- with President Ghani agreeing to reduction of violence -- there is a consensus among the parties," said Omar Sadr, an assistant professor of political science at the American University of Afghanistan.

"But the election issue has created a huge gap between the political sides, and that needs to be bridged in a very short time for this process to move forward," he added. "And I don't know how that can happen without Khalilzad and the U.S. stepping in."

Sadr said the Americans remaining quiet on the election results gives them "maneuver room" to broker a settlement to the political crisis -- which could provide leverage to make sure the peace process doesn't fall apart.

TWO INTERPRETATIONS

The Taliban, meanwhile, said in a statement that the agreement is intended to achieve nationwide peace and an end to the foreign troop presence in the country.

President Donald Trump is determined, one way or another, to reduce U.S. involvement in Afghanistan to a minimum, and the Taliban's long-term commitment to compromise and power-sharing remains open to question.

During any withdrawal, the U.S. would retain the right to continue counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan, which have been focused mainly on an Islamic State group's affiliate and al-Qaida, according to Pentagon officials.

The Pentagon has declined to say whether the U.S. had agreed to cut its troop levels in Afghanistan to zero. Defense Secretary Mark Esper has said if the truce is successful and the Afghan peace talks begin, the U.S. would reduce its troop contingent "over time" to about 8,600.

Yet Suhail Shaheen, spokesman for the Taliban's political office in Doha, tweeted that the Taliban expect a complete withdrawal. In a Pashto language tweet, he said, "based on the agreement with the U.S., all international forces will leave Afghanistan and the invasion will end and no one will be allowed to use Afghan soil against others."

In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed the developments. The U.S.-led military alliance has some 16,000 troops in Afghanistan helping to train the country's security forces, but it could draw down on its operation to accommodate any firm peace agreement.

"This is a critical test of the Taliban's willingness and ability to reduce violence, and contribute to peace in good faith," Stoltenberg said in a statement. "This could pave the way for negotiations among Afghans, sustainable peace, and ensuring the country is never again a safe haven for terrorists."

Information for this article was contributed by Susannah George, John Hudson and Haq Nawaz Khan of The Washington Post; by Mujib Mashal of The New York Times; and by Kathy Gannon, Matthew Lee, Tameem Akhgar, Lorne Cook, Lolita Baldor and Robert Burns of The Associated Press.

A Section on 02/22/2020

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