The Briefing Room
General Category => World News => Topic started by: TomSea on March 15, 2019, 12:17:03 am
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U.S.-Afghan tensions erupt over Kabul's exclusion from peace talks
Jonathan Landay
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and Afghanistan clashed publicly on Thursday over U.S. peace talks with the Taliban, with a visiting Afghan official accusing the chief U.S. negotiator of “delegitimizing†the Kabul government by excluding it from the deliberations.
The remarks by Hamdullah Mohib, a former ambassador to Washington who serves as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s national security adviser, drew a blistering rebuke from the State Department, which said they impeded U.S.-Afghan ties and the peace process.
The feud thrust into the open tensions that have been building between the allies over U.S. efforts to forge a peace pact with the Taliban paving the way for a U.S. troop withdrawal that Kabul fears could weaken its own negotiating position.
Read more at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-afghanistan-mohib-idUSKCN1QV2XU (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-afghanistan-mohib-idUSKCN1QV2XU)
Trump envoy is selling out Afghanistan in Taliban peace talks: senior Afghan official
"We don't know what's going on. We don't have the kind of transparency that we should have," said Afghan national security adviser Hamdullah Mohib.
(https://media4.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2019_11/2786086/190314-hamdullah-mohib-al-1215_1004ae170ddb7be788fab8ce8fe01bcc.fit-2000w.jpg)
Afghanistans National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib during a meeting of national security secretaries of Afghanistan, China, Iran, India and Russia, in the Iranian capital Tehran on Sept. 26, 2018.Atta Kenare / AFP - Getty Images file
March 14, 2019, 12:41 PM CDT
By Dan De Luce
A top Afghan government official on Thursday blasted the Trump administration's peace talks with the Taliban, accusing a U.S. presidential envoy of shutting out the Kabul government and betraying the trust of a close ally.
"We don't know what's going on. We don't have the kind of transparency that we should have," Hamdullah Mohib, Afghan national security adviser, told reporters during a visit to Washington.
Asked if President Donald Trump's envoy for reconciliation in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, was consulting the Afghan government on his talks with the Taliban insurgents, Mohib said: "No. We get bits and pieces of information."
Read more at: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-envoy-selling-out-afghanistan-taliban-peace-talks-senior-afghan-n983326 (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-envoy-selling-out-afghanistan-taliban-peace-talks-senior-afghan-n983326)