Khalilzad to visit four countries in his Afghanistan peace mission

WASHINGTON: United States’ Special Representative for Afghanistan Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad will lead a delegation of officials to visit Pakistan, India, China and Afghanistan from January 8 – 21, the state department said in a statement.

Khalilzad will meet with senior government officials in each country during his visit to facilitate an intra-Afghan political settlement.

In his visit to India, the US special envoy will brief the officials about progress and nature of talks with Taliban besides President Donald Trump’s decision to reduce US troops in Afghanistan, Indian media reports said.

The Taliban on Tuesday announced that they had canceled planned peace talks with U.S. officials in Qatar this week over disagreement on agenda.

“Both sides have agreed to not meet in Qatar,” senior Taliban members based in Afghanistan told Reuters.

Talks had been planned for two days starting Wednesday in Qatar, senior Taliban members earlier told Reuters. The Taliban had rejected requests from regional powers to allow Afghan government officials to take part in the discussion.

This would have been the fourth round of US-Taliban talks on a peace initiative to end the 17-year-old Afghan war, which is also America’s longest military engagement.

The media reports claimed that the talks had been postponed indefinitely, diplomatic sources in Washington said the meeting would soon be rescheduled as both sides wanted the dialogue to continue.