Taliban, US Officials Reportedly Meet in Person in Doha

Senior Taliban officials and US representatives were scheduled to meet over the weekend in Doha, according to reports.

A top Afghan diplomat, Mullah Amir Khan Muttaqi, Afghanistan’s acting foreign minister, confirmed to Al Jazeera that the meetings took place on Saturday and Sunday, and that focus of the Afghan delegation was humanitarian aid as well as solving its economic woes; they asked the US to lift its ban on the reserves of Afghanistan’s central bank and unfreeze the country’s assets. The sides also were scheduled to discuss how to deal with the terrorist threat from the Islamic State, according to reports. The Associated Press said, citing an unnamed US official, that the US would press for the Taliban to honor commitments that they would allow Americans, other foreign nationals and Afghans who worked for the US military to leave the country.

It is the first such meeting since the United States withdrew its troops from Afghanistan after a presence of two decades. The talks do not mean that the US is recognizing the Taliban as the legitimate Afghan leaders, according to reports.