WASHINGTON: Nearly three months after he abruptly ended talks with the Taliban, President Donald Trump has given his blessing to fresh diplomacy, but major obstacles stand in the way of a deal to end the Afghanistan war.Chief among the questions is how to address the soaring violence in Afghanistan -- which the Taliban sees as leverage but which Trump has hinted that the insurgents were willing to halt.Trump flew to Afghanistan on Thursday for a surprise trip to see US troops on the Thanksgiving holiday and dropped the news that talks with the Taliban were back on -- a process the president declared dead in September. "The Taliban wants to make a deal and we're meeting with them," Trump said.US officials offered little evidence that full-fledged negotiations had resumed. But observers said that Trump was at least signaling support for further negotiations after the success last week of a captive swap with the Taliban, who freed two Western professors held hostage for three years. "US diplomats have been quietly exploring how to get the talks restarted," said Laurel Miller, who served as the US special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan under both Trump and his predecessor Barack Obama."Until now it was unclear if those quiet efforts were enough to reverse his public claim that the talks were dead. Now he´s publicly validated them," said Miller, now the Asia director at the International Crisis Group.She nonetheless questioned if fresh talks would be seamless after Trump in September said he had invited and then disinvited a Taliban delegation after the death of one US soldier."I think that would give any party that you're negotiating with some pause about how reliable you're going to be in meaning what you say and sticking to it," she said. Trump, who faces re-election in less than a year, has been eager to end America's longest war and wind down what he sees as a waste of blood and treasure.
from The News International - National https://ift.tt/2L4NPAr
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