Taliban optimistic for their negotiations with the United States

Taliban talks last month in Qatar with the United States were a success, their chief negotiator said on a visit to Moscow on Tuesday.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the US envoy to Afghanistan, where the United States has been engaged militarily for more than seventeen years, announced at the end of January that it had reached a draft framework agreement with the Islamist militia, after six days of talks in Qatar.

Only the main lines have been fixed.

In Moscow, the head of the Taliban delegation wanted an agreement on a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops to be concluded quickly.

In Washington, before a Senate committee, US General Joseph Votel, head of Central Command, was much more cautious, saying that the peace process was still in its infancy and deplored the fact that the Taliban refuse any dialogue with the Afghan government, which it judges in the pay of the United States.

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