Taliban ‘set to open office in Doha’

The much-awaited Afghan Taliban office in Doha is expected to officially open today, the AFP news agency reported quoting Qatar-based Al Jazeera television yesterday.

Since 2011, talks have been underway to open a Taliban office in Qatar, which was touted as a tool to help facilitate talks between the militants and the Afghan government.

Al Jazeera cited anonymous sources for its report and gave no further details but a Taliban spokesman in Kabul told AFP he was “unaware” of any such development.

In April, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the opening of a Taliban office in Doha could “facilitate the peace process”.

He made the remarks in an interview with Al Jazeera following talks in Doha with HH the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.

The Afghan president previously opposed a Taliban office in Qatar over fears that his government would be frozen out of any future peace deal involving the Islamist group and the United States.

The Taliban group refuses to have direct contact with Karzai, saying the United States had supported his rise to power after the military operation to oust the Taliban from Kabul in 2001.

But with US-led Nato combat troops due to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, Karzai recently backed the proposed office in Doha.

Any peace talks still face numerous hurdles before they begin, including confusion over who would represent the Taliban and Karzai’s insistence that his appointees should be at the centre of negotiations.

The Afghan president has been in Qatar twice already this year.  Apart from his April visit when he gave the interview to Al Jazeera, he was in Doha earlier this month to take part in the 10th US-Islamic World Forum. HH the Emir  had received President Karzai at the Emiri Diwan where both leaders discussed a wide range of issues.

The Afghan delegation included  Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul and the chairman of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council Salahuddin Rabbani.  

Earlier in May, the UK-based Guardian newspaper had reported that the Afghan Taliban had been told to issue a declaration distancing itself from Al Qaeda and committing itself to peace talks before it can open a political office in Qatar.

The conditions were said to involve making an unambiguous public break with global “jihadism”  and promising to use the office in Doha as a base for negotiations with the US and the Afghan government, rather than as the seat of a government in exile or for fundraising.

Also, at an earlier three-way meeting held outside Brussels in April attended by  President Karzai, US Secretary of State John Kerry had asked Pakistan’s army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, to demonstrate his stated support for peace talks by putting pressure on the Pakistan-based Taliban to abide by any such declaration.

Some of the chief negotiators of the Taliban reported to be in Doha include Tayyab Agha, a Mullah Omar confidant and Maulvi Shahabuddin Dilawar.

All efforts to contact the Afghan embassy officials in Doha proved to be unsuccessful yesterday.