US Envoy Seeks End to Taliban Offensive in Afghanistan

Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, is heading to Doha, the capital of Qatar, for three days of talks with the Taliban, the State Department announced on Monday. Khalilzad “will press the Taliban to stop their military offensive,” the department said in a statement. But convincing them to stop seems unlikely as the US quickly withdraws its troops and one provincial capital after another – six just in the last four days – falls to the Sunni Islamist military organization. Khalilzad also is aiming to “help formulate a joint international response to the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan,” the department said. The meetings in Doha will include governmental and organizational representatives from the region and beyond, who “will press for a reduction of violence and cease-fire and a commitment not to recognize a government imposed by force,” the statement added. The US is continuing to launch limited airstrikes on the Taliban but now sees the conflict as primarily an internal Afghan matter. “It’s their country to defend now. It’s their struggle,” US Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said at a news conference on Monday. And, he acknowledged, the struggle is “clearly not going in the right direction.”