Pompeo rushes to Kabul to jumpstart flagging peace process
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived Monday in Kabul on an urgent visit to attempt to progress a U.S. peace deal signed last month with the Taliban, a vacation that comes regardless of the coronavirus pandemic, at the same time when world leaders and statesmen are curtailing official travel.
Because the signing of the deal, the peace process has stalled amid political turmoil in Afghanistan, with the country's leaders squabbling over who was elected president.
President Ashraf Ghani and his main rival in last September's presidential polls, Abdullah Abdullah, have both declared themselves the country's president in dueling inauguration ceremonies earlier this month.
During his visit, Pompeo is likely to make an effort to help end the impasse, which has put on contain the start of intra-Afghan peace talks that could include the Taliban. Those talks have emerged as a critical next thing in the peace deal, negotiated to permit the United States to buying its troops and present Afghans the very best chance at peace.
The U.S. and NATO have previously begun to withdraw some troops from Afghanistan. The final pullout of U.S. forces is not dependent on the success of intra-Afghan negotiations but instead on promises made by the Taliban to deny space in Afghanistan to other terror groups, including the insurgents' rival Islamic State group.
But within days of the U.S.- and the Taliban signing the peace deal in Qatar on Feb. 29, Afghanistan sunk right into a political crisis with Ghani and Abdullah squaring off over election results and Ghani refusing to fulfill his part of a promise manufactured in the U.S.-Taliban deal to free up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners. The insurgents were because of their part, to free 1,000 Afghan officials and soldiers they hold captive. The exchange was meant to be considered a good-will gesture by both sides to start the negotiations.
The urgency of Pompeo's surprise visit was highlighted by the actual fact that the STATE DEPT. has warned Americans against all international travel, citing the spread of the brand new coronavirus. Pompeo has cancelled at least two domestic U.S. trips as a result of the outbreak, including someone to a now-cancelled G7 foreign ministers meeting that was to took place in Pittsburgh this week. That meeting will now happen by video conference.
Pompeo's last overseas trip in late February was to Doha, Qatar, for the signing of the U.S.-Taliban peace deal he's now trying to salvage.
As the virus pandemic has worsened, triggering many nations to close their borders and airports and cancel international flights, Pompeo and the STATE DEPT. have come under increasing criticism for not doing enough to greatly help Americans stranded overseas get home.
On Saturday, just hours before he departed on his unannounced trip to Afghanistan, Pompeo was roundly attacked on social media for a photography he posted to his personal Twitter account of him and his wife, Susan, in the home focusing on a jigsaw puzzle with a scene from the Tom Cruise film "Top Gun" on a TV screen. "Susan and I are residing in and doing a puzzle today. Pro tip: if you're missing the beach, just throw at the top Gun!" the caption read.
Most of the critics took Pompeo to task for apparently no longer working while a large number of Americans are desperate for transportation home from various countries.
Washington's peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been trying to jumpstart talks between Afghans on both sides of the conflict - another critical step in the U.S.-Taliban deal - tweeted early Monday that the two sides are discussing the prisoner exchange.
The intra-Afghan negotiations were never likely to be easy but since Washington signed the peace deal with the Taliban, it has struggled to achieve the Afghan government to at least offer a unified position.
Pompeo's visit is also extraordinary for the actual fact that the U.S., like the United Nations, had earlier said it would not again be drawn into mediating between feuding Afghan politicians. As the Afghan election committee this time around gave the win to Ghani, Abdullah and the election complaints commission charged widespread irregularities to challenge Ghani's win.
In Afghanistan's previous presidential election in 2014, also marred by widespread fraud and deeply disputed results, Ghani and Abdullah emerged as leading contenders. Then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry mediated between your two and eventually cobbled together a so-called unity government, with Ghani as president and Abdullah holding the newly created but equal in statue post of the country's leader.
However, the Ghani-Andullah partnership was a difficult one, and for a lot of its five years triggered a parliamentary paralysis before the September balloting.
