The United States on Wednesday stated that the Doha agreement empowered Afghan Taliban but weakened its partner in the Afghan government.
This remark was made by State Department Spokesperson Ned Price during the regular briefing while expressing his views on the three-year anniversary of the Doha agreement between America and the Afghan Taliban.
Taliban have not fulfilled their own commitments – the commitments that they made in the Doha Agreement. While they have taken some unsatisfactory steps regarding certain terrorist groups in Afghanistan, it is well known that the Taliban sheltered then-al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, which flies in the face of the agreement, Ned Price remarked.
It was only because the US government was resolute in its commitment to take decisive action in the face of such threats that they removed Ayman al‑Zawahiri and he was no longer the leader of al-Qaida, he said.
“An Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan. We continue to call on the Taliban to fulfill the commitments that they made to not only the United States in the context of this document but, most importantly, to their own people, the Afghan people that are still waiting for the Taliban to make good on those commitments.“It was quoted in the agreement, Ned Price explained.
Despite this, the agreement empowered the Taliban, but it weakened US partners in the Afghan government and committed to withdrawing its troops a few months after President Biden’s inauguration with no clear plan for what should come next, despite imposing a deadline.
Doha agreement
The United States of America and the Islamic Emirate signed the Doha Agreement on February 29, 2020.
This agreement was signed in Doha, the capital of Qatar, after 18 months of talks between Zalmay Khalilzad, a former US special envoy for the reconciliation of Afghanistan, and Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the former deputy of the Islamic Emirate’s political office.
The agreement, which now Kabul and Washington accuse each other of violating, was signed during the presidency of Donald Trump, the former US president, in Qatar.