Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The United States on Friday denied having any direct presence in the ongoing negotiations between some leaders of the Taliban and the Afghan government, but revealed that American troops are facilitating travel for those involved.
“To travel through Afghanistan from point A to point B, it is best to coordinate with the Afghan Government and ISAF so everyone’s aware of what is happening, but I’m not going to go into great detail,” said PJ Crowley, the State Department spokesman on the facilitation process for the Taliban leaders.
“I cannot tell you whether security forces are actually assisting in the transportation or just coordinating the transportation so that people can move to these meeting locations,” Crowley said at the state department briefing.
The state department spokesman explained, “The facilitation really involves the movement of people to meeting locations and – but beyond that, we are just simply doing what the Afghan Government has asked us to do to promote this process,” adding, “We are supporting this process, and we think it’s critical to resolving the conflict that is ongoing.”
Asked to comment if there are eyes and ears embedded in the negotiating teams to keep track of the ongoing negotiations, Crowley told journalists, “I’m not sure about embedding of eyes and ears. There are contacts between the Afghan Government and the Taliban. As we have acknowledged, we are helping to facilitate those meetings,” adding, “This is an Afghan-led process and we are supporting them.”
On the question of involvement of Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, Crowley reiterated, “There’s no indication that we have that Mullah Omar has any intention of meeting the standards that we’ve laid out … He has had many opportunities to disassociate himself with al Qaeda.”
“Everything that we know suggests he still is closely affiliated with al Qaeda, and as such, would disqualify himself from any participation in this process or any involvement in the future of Afghanistan,” concluded Crowley.
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