Washington (CNN)The Biden administration has proposed to the Afghan government that they enter an interim power-sharing agreement with the Taliban in a letter from Secretary of State Antony Blinken to President Ashraf Ghani.
Blinken also proposed that Afghanistan’s neighbors, including Iran, take on a greater role and warned that the Biden administration continues to review whether to withdraw US troops by a May 1 deadline set under the Trump administration.
The letter, sent via US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad, offers the first real look at the Biden administration’s thinking about Afghanistan, and appeared to reflect frustration as Blinken wrote that he wanted Ghani “to understand the urgency of my tone.”
Despite ongoing talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban after a 2020 agreement between the US and the militant group, violence in the country has steadily increased.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price declined to comment on the veracity of the proposal or the letter, which were first published Sunday by the Afghan news service Tolo News. A US official and another diplomatic source familiar with the letter said it was authentic.
The situation in Afghanistan is a thorny one for Biden, who opposed an increase in the US presence there during the Obama administration and has said he wants to wind down US involvement in the nearly 20-year conflict. Biden could face domestic criticism if he does not follow through on the withdrawal, but at the same time, the country remains unstable, the Taliban have increased their control of wider swaths of the country and the gains made by women and girls are at risk.
Price told reporters that Khalilzad was in Pakistan on Monday. He declined to give a sense of how the meetings in the region were going nor did he say how Khalilzad’s meeting with the Taliban went, saying he does not want to “prejudge” how the situation will unfold.
Source: US proposes Afghanistan enter interim power-sharing agreement with Taliban
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