The negotiation train between Washington and the Taliban started about a decade ago, passed through stages and stations, and experienced difficulties and obstacles, before reaching today to its last station by signing a peace agreement between the two parties under the auspices of Qatar.
The first step in this long journey came after US President Barack Obama on March 7, 2009, in an interview with The New York Times, indicated access to and dialogue with moderate Taliban leaders.
- For the first time, US officials met with the movement's representatives in Munich in the presence of Qatari and German personalities on November 28, 2010.
After that, Washington initiated the request to meet the Taliban in Doha, and they sat together for the second time in mid-February 2011, followed by preliminary negotiations between them hosted by Germany in May 2011.
Then, US officials met with Taliban representatives in Doha in January 2012 to discuss confidence-building steps, including a prisoner exchange, and to open an office in Doha.
- With the appointment of Zalmay Khalilzad as the US President's special envoy to Afghanistan, negotiations sessions with the Taliban began in Doha on October 12, 2018.
Negotiations between the two parties completed their ninth round on September 1 of last year.
Last July was the start of an Afghan-Afghan dialogue in Qatar sponsored by German, in which sixty Afghan personalities participated, with the aim of building confidence between the main parties.
After the Taliban claimed responsibility for the killing of an American soldier and the injury of eleven others in Kabul last September, President Trump suspended peace negotiations with the Taliban.
- After that, the negotiators were absent from the meetings for about three months before they resumed between them on the seventh of last December, and the focus was on finalizing the draft peace in Afghanistan.
Among the most important items of this draft are Washington’s agreement to withdraw five thousand and 400 soldiers, close five military bases within 135 days, and the Taliban’s commitment not to use Afghan lands as a starting point to target the United States.