The United States is seeking a peace agreement and not an agreement to withdraw its troops from war-ravaged Afghanistan, the Trump Administration has said.
Weeks after initiating direct talks with the Taliban, wherein the two agreed on a framework of peace agreement, Trump Administration's point person on Friday told a Washington audience that these were just a few steps in the direction of peaceful resolution of the conflict in Afghanistan and that they have a long way to go.
And this cannot be achieved without the help of regional players, in particular Pakistan, Special US Representative Zalmay Khalilzad said in his maiden public appearance before a Washington audience some six months after he was entrusted with this task by the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
"My overall goal is, at the direction of the president of the secretary of state, not to seek out withdrawal agreement, but the peace agreement. Because peace agreement can allow withdrawal. It is not just the withdrawal agreement that we are seeking," Khalilzad said.
The veteran American diplomat in his appearance before the US Institute of Peace (USIP) said that to achieve a peace agreement, quite a number of issues have to be dealt with.
"We have tried to develop a long agenda of issues that must be addressed. Initially, we have focused on two issues, one on the issue of counter terrorism and the other the issue of us forced withdrawal," he said.
"After many conversations, we have reached an agreement in principle with the Taliban on a framework that would provide guarantees, and enforcement mechanism that no terrorist group, international terrorist group or individuals would be able to use Afghanistan, the areas that they control and should they be part of a future government; against the United States as allies and others," Khalilzad said.
"We will engage with Taliban further to flush out these commitments that they've made," said the Afghan-born US diplomat who was the highest ranking Muslim American in the Bush Administration in his capacity as the US Ambassador to the United Nations.
He also served as the US Ambassadors to Afghanistan and Iraq during the Bush Administration.
"Our hope is, our expectation is that once interact can dialogue begins, which is our key objective, that these parallel discussions will be brought together," he said.
"Even if we achieve success on these two issues, we make further progress, a peace agreement would not be, immediately or shortly are achieved in the foreseeable future without a comprehensive agreement on other issues," he added.
Nothing is agreed to until everything has been agreed to and the other issues that must be dealt with are issues of a roadmap for Afghanistan political future to end Afghan war.
The Afghans, he asserted, must sit across the table with each other and come to an agreement about their future of their country.
