A highly rated United States official working on Afghanistan has warned Congress that a withdrawal of US troops from the country without first brokering a peace agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban would be ‘a disaster’.
John Sopko, the US Department of Defense’s special inspector for Afghanistan reconstruction, issued a warning to a House of Representatives committee on Tuesday noting that without US military and financial support, the Afghan government in Kabul could face collapse.
‘The Afghan government would probably lose the capability of flying any of its aircraft within a few months and, to be quite blunt, would probably face collapse,’ he said.
His warning comes days before another round of peace talks is set to take place between the Taliban and the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani – and only weeks before a May 1 deadline for the withdrawal of US troops from the country.
The US’s special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad will attend the conference in Moscow on March 18, while the Taliban said it plans to send a 10-person, high-level delegation led by chief negotiator Mullah Baradar Akhund.
Under a February 2020 deal reached between the Taliban and the administration of former US President Donald Trump, all foreign troops are set to be withdrawn from the country by May 1.
There are currently about 3,500 US troops and 10,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan.
A Taliban spokesman has expressed scepticism over the US proposal, however, saying transitional governments have proven ineffective and that the group’s vision for the country revolved around a strong central administration capable of enforcing its definition of an Islamic system of governance.
Muhammad Naim, a Taliban spokesman, told Al Jazeera that the group did not believe an interim government could deal with the country’s challenges.
Last month, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called for a reduction in violence in Afghanistan and said more progress was needed in Afghan peace negotiations before Western forces withdraw from the war-torn country.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
