NEW DELHI: As the US ramps up its diplomatic efforts to advance the peace process in Afghanistan, foreign minister S Jaishankar held talks with the US special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad on Sunday.
The Biden administration has been doing its own review of the peace process in Afghanistan, as a result, the US has advanced a five-point process to take this forward, worried that the security situation in Afghanistan would deteriorate after the US withdrawal on May 1, leading to the Taliban making “rapid territorial gains.”
The US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, in a letter to the Afghan president Ashraf Ghani said “to move matters more fundamentally and quickly towards a settlement and permanent and comprehensive ceasefire”, the US would take several steps — the first of which would entail asking the UN to convene a meeting of foreign ministers from India, Pakistan, China, Iran, Russia and US to discuss a unified approach to Afghanistan.
This is significant — it would bring the regional powers with stakes but different interests in Afghanistan to the same table, to chart a common way forward. It is in context of such a meeting that Jaishankar held a phone conversation with Zalmay Khalilzad.
Jaishankar tweeted, “Received a call from US Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad @US4AfghanPeace. Discussed latest developments pertaining to peace talks. We will remain in touch.”

“Even with the continuation of financial assistance from the United States to your forces after an American military withdrawal, I am concerned that the security situation will worsen and that the Taliban could make rapid territorial gains,” Blinken said in his letter to Ghani.
The US, as the letter shows, is keen that the Afghan government and Taliban work on “a roadmap to a new, inclusive government”, and a permanent ceasefire. The first is also known as an “interim” government which essentially brings the Taliban at par with the Afghan government. The escalating violence in Afghanistan over the past weeks make the idea of a ceasefire worthy but perhaps unattainable at this point.
Ghani, speaking to the Afghan parliament on Saturday, refused to step aside for an interim government. “Any institution can write a fantasy on a piece of paper and suggest a solution for Afghanistan” he said, demanding that any government would have to come through elections. The Taliban is more amenable to an interim government, with their officials saying they would choose people of “good reputation” for the government. The fear in Kabul is such a government would be undemocratic and essentially inserting the Taliban into sharing power with the elected government.
The Blinken letter conveyed a lot of the urgency of the Biden administration. A similar urgency is not reflected on the Afghan side.
India has maintained that Pakistan’s malafide interest in Afghanistan is the sole cause of the continuing insurgency, since Islamabad/Rawalpindi continues to support the Taliban and the Haqqani network, two of the top terror groups responsible for a lot of the killing in Afghanistan. However, with a recent India-Pakistan ceasefire in place, the two countries may be persuaded to sit together at the same table, even though they might have very different solutions to the Afghan peace process.
Blinken told Ghani that he had asked Khalilzad to give written proposals “for accelerating discussions on a negotiated settlement and ceasefire.” The Taliban have mounted deadly violence in recent weeks, putting the Doha peace process with the US under sever strain. The US, Blinken told Ghani, intends to leave by May 1 — which could prompt the Taliban to continue doing what they’re best at, waiting the US out.
Clearly indicating that the Doha process may have run its course, Blinken said the US would ask Turkey to convene a meeting of the two sides to “finalise a peace agreement.” The Doha pact between US and Taliban was supposed to lead to intra-Afghan talks. That did not happen, instead violence has only increased.
Blinken also said the US had prepared a 90-day reduction-in-violence proposal which the Afghan government and Taliban have been urged to abide by, “which is intended to prevent a spring offensive by the Taliban.” Blinken said, “I urge you to positively consider the proposal.” But there is no word whether the Taliban would also obey.
Blinken, importantly, reminded Ghani that disunity among Afghan leaders in the 1990s had proved costly — he said Ghani should work with his CEO Abdullah Abdullah, former president Hamid Karzai and Prof Sayyaf, even expand the group to make it more representative of all Afghans.