By Karen DeYoung and Ernesto Londoño
U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry assured India and other concerned partners in this volatile region Monday that the United States plans to continue supporting the Afghan military and to keep American forces in Afghanistan after the scheduled 2014 combat withdrawal, “under any circumstances.”
India is particularly worried that the U.S. withdrawal will leave an ongoing war in Afghanistan between Taliban forces backed by Pakistan and other forces that have sought aid from India and Central Asian countries to combat any Taliban attempt to regain power.
India also has questioned U.S. plans to conduct peace negotiations with the Taliban in a new political office for the insurgents established last week in Doha, the capital of the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar. An inaugural session of those talks was put on hold last week after Afghan President Hamid Karzai objected to the Taliban labeling the office an outpost of “the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” the name under which the Taliban ruled until they were ousted by U.S. and Afghan forces in 2001.
James Dobbins, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who was scheduled to head the U.S. delegation for the talks, traveled to Kabul on Monday for damage control with Karzai and other Afghan officials.
Dobbins described a meeting with Karzai as “quite positive” and said the two countries were now waiting to see “whether the Taliban want to talk.”
The envoy said a “combination” of misunderstandings led to the display of a Taliban flag and an Islamic Emirate plaque on the wall of the Doha office, in violation of conditions the Afghan government had set for the talks. Dobbins said the insurgents wanted to “score a propaganda advance and they seem to have overplayed their hand.”
Through Qatari intermediaries, the United States insisted that the flag and plaque be taken down. Although they were removed from sight from outside the walled Doha residence where the office is located, the Taliban said in a statement Monday that it had acted with the acquiescence of the Qatar government in displaying the trappings of a virtual embassy and did not offer to desist.
Dobbins did not say when the aborted talks might be rescheduled. After the initially scheduled meeting was canceled last Tuesday, U.S. officials offered to hold it Sunday. But the Taliban indicated through intermediaries that they needed approval from the insurgent political leadership in Quetta, Pakistan, and had not yet received it. U.S. officials said they were still open to a meeting, but would not wait forever.
At a news conference here Monday with Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid, Kerry appeared to misstate U.S. requirements for negotiations, saying they would not be held until the Taliban met three conditions: a break in ties with al-Qaeda; an end to violence in Afghanistan; and fealty to the Afghan constitution, including respect of the rights of minorities and women.
“Thus far, those conditions have not yet been met, so there is no negotiation at this point,” Kerry said. “If the conditions are met, then there is a negotiation that will take place not with the United States, but with the High Peace Council of Afghanistan.”
While U.S. policy has long set the three conditions as necessary outcomes for successful negotiations, the Obama administration said last week that its two preconditions for beginning talks — Taliban statements eschewing international terrorism and recognizing Afghan democracy — had both been met. At the same time, the United States said it was ready to begin talks with the Taliban and then turn them over to the Afghan government.
An administration official said U.S. policy on both the preconditions and the necessary outcomes of negotiations had not changed.
Any final agreement with the Taliban, Kerry said later in the news conference, “will be decided by the Afghan people through this negotiation, or it will decided at the ballot box in 2014 without the Taliban. . . . The United States will continue, as President Obama has made clear, to support the Afghan government, to support the Afghan military, to continue to equip and train it well beyond 2014, and to continue to have a level of a force on the ground that will continue to conduct antiterrorism, counterterrorism activity.”
In response to last Tuesday’s Taliban office dispute, Karzai also suspended U.S.-Afghan negotiations over the size and mission of the post-2014 force, although U.S. officials said they expected those discussions to resume.
Kerry said that India has an important role to play in encouraging Karzai to prepare for presidential elections, scheduled for April 2014, and ensure they are “accessible, accountable, transparent, free and fair.” He also said Dobbins would visit India on Wednesday.
During a two-day trip here, Kerry and Khurshid praised cooperation and growing economic ties between the United States and India. They said they made progress in resolving outstanding trade and investment matters. On one prickly issue, Khurshid said they “reaffirmed their commitment to full and timely implementation of the civil nuclear deal,” including the proposed sale of Westinghouse power reactors to India. He said he expected the Westinghouse agreement, which has been held up over Indian liability law, to be completed by September.
The two men said they had also discussed Iran, with which India has close diplomatic and commercial ties. “We completely understand the relationship that India has,” Kerry said. “We are appreciative that India has worked hard to reduce its dependency on Iranian oil, and that has been an important step, and India has been very cooperative in communicating to Iran and in standing up publicly and holding them accountable for nonproliferation requirements.”
India, Kerry said, could “help urge the new Iranian leadership, as well as the old leadership and the Supreme Leader, to take advantage of this moment,” and to “urge the Iranians . . . not to miscalculate about American and international commitment” to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Khurshid, who visited Iran in early May, before the presidential election of Hassan Rouhani this month, said he had shared his assessment with Kerry.
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