Doha: The United States has assured Afghanistan’s Taliban autocrats that Washington won’t fund any fortified groups ornon-state actors in the country, Taliban sources have told Al Jazeera.
The assurances were eaten by the Taliban as Tajik-fortified groups, which have been backed by the West in history, continue to challenge the group’s leadership – indeed as it has managed to contain the Tajik- dominated National Resistance Front and other groups aligned with the former Western-backed government since it returned to power in August last time.
The assurances were given during a meeting between US Department of State officers and Taliban representatives in Doha before this month.
While many details about the meeting in the Qatari capital are available, Taliban sources told Al Jazeera its members met with members of a high-position US delegation, including the CIA deputy director.
This meeting was the first since July when the US said it killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone attack on his caching place in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul.
Al- Zawahiri’s presence in Afghanistan led the West to charge the Taliban of violating the 2020 Doha Agreement, in which the Afghan group agreed not to give safe haven to al-Qaeda and other fortified groups.
The Taliban swept into power last time in a lightning descent but violence by fortified groups similar as the ISIL chapter ISKP has surged in recent months, posing a security challenge to the group.
Read More: The US Still Trying to Choke Afghanistan
Taliban reject US plan for Afghan means
In the meeting, the Taliban also conveyed its rejection of the US advertisement that it would transfer$3.5 bn in frozen Afghan central bank means into a Swiss-grounded trust, according to the Taliban sources, who have knowledge about the meetings.
Last month, the Taliban said the US decision to put part of nearly $10bn in Afghan means – which it set last August in an attempt to keep the Taliban from penetrating it – into trust was “inferior and a violation of transnational morals”.
The US advertisement had said the fund will be managed by a transnational board of trustees and used for debt payments, electricity, food, publishing new currency, and other essential requirements and services.
The Afghan group has constantly called for the lifting of warrants and the release of frozen finances, including transnational aid that was suspended after the Taliban preemption, to help its dying frugality. warrants that had been placed on the Taliban during their first period of rule that ended in 2001 came back into force with them taking power last time.
Read More: The Never-Ending War & Al-Qaeda
The Taliban’s insulation
Further, then half of Afghanistan’s 39 million people need philanthropic help and six million are under threat of shortage, the United Nations said in August.
No country has recognised the Taliban’s tone-nominated Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and its political and fiscal insulation has aggravated the philanthropic extremity in the country, which has suffered from decades of war, including the last 20 times under US occupation.
The transnational community has prompted the Taliban to admire mortal rights, including allowing girls access to seminaries and workplaces. But the group has put in place adding checks on mortal rights, further rankling the transnational community and dashing any expedients of recognition.
Still, the exposures of the Doha meeting show the US continues to engage with the Taliban despite the rift.
A state department prophet verified the Doha meetings to Al Jazeera.
“As we ’ve made clear, we ’ll continue to engage the Taliban pragmatically regarding American interests,” she told Al Jazeera.
Read More: US Failure in Afghanistan: Who to Blame?
Source: Al Jazeera
